Here\u2019s what you\u2019ll learn when you read this story:<\/p>\n
A mysterious reddish object that formed only 90 million years after the Big Bang was observed by the James Webb Space Telescope.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
If it is a galaxy, it would be the oldest known galaxy in the universe, but it could also be a brown dwarf or an early black hole.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
Initial research showed features that aligned with different types of objects, but none were an exact match, so further observation is needed.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
As NASA\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope<\/a> peers deeper and deeper into time, it keeps making stranger discoveries. Case in point: What exactly is the reddish orange object that supposedly appeared in the darkness only 90 million years after the universe yawned awake?<\/p>\n Well, it turns out it might be a protogalaxy. If that is confirmed, the object will officially be 110 million years older than the current-oldest-known galaxy, MoM-z14, which began shining 280 million years after the Big Bang<\/a>. The mystery object, CEERS ID U-100588, has been unofficially named Capotauro (after an Italian mountain) by the international team of researchers who spotted it in data from the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) Survey.<\/p>\n Galaxies have been thought to have first formed several hundred million years after the birth of the nascent universe<\/a>. But if this really does turn out to be a galaxy, it could change our understanding of galactic birth and evolution. That said, however, the object could also be an entirely different type of object\u2014for instance, the researchers explored the possibility of Capotauro being a brown dwarf<\/a>. Brown dwarfs are substellar objects<\/a>, meaning that they are less massive than stars and lack enough mass to power the nuclear fusion process that merges hydrogen atoms into helium and keeps stars glowing.<\/p>\n Often called \u201cfailed stars,\u201d brown dwarfs emit hardly any energy<\/a>, and what is emitted comes mostly from heat stored within them as the gas clouds in which they formed collapsed. To find out if this is a better categorization for Capotauro, the researchers analyzed its morphology and measured its brightness. Morphological tests were inconclusive\u2014the object was difficult to see clearly, even at the highest resolution\u2014but the light it absorbs could reveal more. Cooler stars and substellar objects like brown dwarfs tend to have high molecular absorption, meaning that molecules absorb certain wavelengths of light.<\/p>\n Interestingly, Capotauro has an obvious break<\/a>\u2014a dark line in the light spectrum that can only mean high absorption. Absorption lines<\/a> indicate which molecules are absorbing light. For example, a hydrogen alpha (H\u03b1) absorption line means that hydrogen absorbed light, so the object must contain hydrogen<\/a>. While this does not rule out the possibility that Capotauro is a brown dwarf, it does mean that the object could also be a rogue gaseous exoplanet. Webb has already detected six objects thought to be rogue planets in the galaxy NGC 1333.<\/p>\n \u201cOur analysis indicates that Capotauro\u2019s properties could be consistent with it being a very cold brown dwarf or a free-floating exoplanet with a record-breaking combination of low temperature<\/a> and large distance,\u201d the researchers wrote in a study recently uploaded to the preprint server arXiv<\/a>.<\/p>\n But to return to the most revolutionary possibility: What are the chances that Capotauro is a galaxy<\/a>? If it is, its light spectra suggest that it must be an incredibly dusty one. Dust scatters<\/a> shorter, bluer wavelengths of light, which gives an object a redder appearance (longer, redder wavelengths being emitted are not so easily affected by dust). There are objects similar to Capotauro that may be galaxies\u2014or incognito black holes.<\/p>\n What are known as little red dots (LRDs)<\/a>, which showed up in Webb observations, were all thought to be galaxies at first. With their low X-ray emissions and spectral properties that are somewhat bizarre, LRDs have been difficult to observe, but their light spectra echo those of the accretion disks of black holes. It is possible that early black holes formed from clumps of gas and dust that grew into cosmic beasts within a few hundred million years. Some may have collapsed in on themselves before they ever became stars.<\/p>\n Capotauro is even more unusual than your typical LRD, as it is even redder than average. None of its features of properties instantly gave away its identity to researchers, so it still keeps its secrets<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile present observations cannot determine Capotauro\u2019s nature, our analysis points to a remarkably unique object in all plausible scenarios,\u201d they said<\/a>. \u201cThis makes Capotauro stand out as a compelling target for follow-up observations<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n [galleryCarousel id=’9e9354e9-d0c6-426e-ba21-7d41e95744de’ mediaId=’2f9db8de-e616-4424-abb8-044f84adb0ab’ display=’carousel’ align=’center’ size=’medium’ share=’true’ expand=” captions=’true’ suppress-title=’false’ hasProducts=’false’][\/galleryCarousel]<\/p>\n You Might Also Like<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s what you\u2019ll learn when you read this story: A mysterious reddish object that formed only 90 million…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":349578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3213,171282,17301,1183,159,171283,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-349577","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-black-hole","9":"tag-brown-dwarf","10":"tag-james-webb-space-telescope","11":"tag-research","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-substellar-objects","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115478279287601388","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}