Bangladeshi-origin astronomer co-leads capturing early formation of galaxy

It’s a dazzling sight that has space scientists feeling the holiday spirit. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has captured an image of what our galaxy likely looked like during its formative years, sparking both wonder and festive cheer.

Dubbed Firefly Sparkle, the image reveals ten vivid clumps of stars glowing in different colours. The discovery provides an unprecedented glimpse into the Milky Way’s infancy, offering clues about how galaxies form and evolve.

“I just love the sparkle galaxy with its Christmas lights shining as it was when the Universe was just 600 million years old,” said Professor Catherine Heymans, Scotland’s Astronomer Royal, in an interview with the BBC.

A time machine into the universe’s past

The JWST, the most powerful telescope ever built, continues to redefine our understanding of the cosmos by peering billions of years into the past. While it has previously revealed older and more distant galaxies, this is the first time scientists have observed a galaxy resembling the Milky Way in its early stages of assembly.

Dr Lamiya Mowla, a Bangladeshi-origin scientist from Wellesley College in Massachusetts, co-led the research team behind this groundbreaking discovery. “Here, we are actually watching a galaxy being formed brick by brick,” she explained. “The galaxies we normally see around us are already formed, so this is the first time we’ve seen this process.”

The festive science behind Firefly Sparkle

The star clusters in Firefly Sparkle glow in varying hues due to their different stages of formation. “It’s so beautiful because the early life of a galaxy is extremely active,” Dr Mowla said. “New stars are being born, massive stars are dying, and there’s a lot of gas, dust, nitrogen, and oxygen creating these lovely colours.”

Prof Heymans, who is independent of the research team, called the discovery “gorgeous, scientifically important, and extremely festive.” She marveled at the human ingenuity that has allowed us to see these nascent phases of galaxy formation in such vivid detail.

A stroke of cosmic luck

The light from Firefly Sparkle has traveled more than 13 billion years to reach us, originating not long after the Universe’s creation. Its discovery was made possible by an extraordinary cosmic coincidence: a massive cluster of galaxies between Firefly Sparkle and the JWST acted as a gravitational lens. This natural phenomenon, which bends and amplifies light, allowed scientists to observe the distant galaxy in unprecedented detail.

“It takes the light coming from the firefly, bends it, and amplifies it so we can see it in glorious detail,” said Dr Kartheik Iyer of Columbia University, who co-led the research.

Assembling the building blocks of a galaxy

The JWST’s observations reveal clumps of actively forming stars surrounded by diffuse light from older stars, a snapshot of a galaxy in the process of assembling. “This galaxy is literally building itself,” Dr Iyer said. “When we see this incredible faraway galaxy, it’s a very humbling, magical feeling.”

A sparkling future for discovery

The discovery of Firefly Sparkle is not only a festive reminder of the Universe’s beauty but also a significant leap in understanding galaxy formation. As scientists continue to push the boundaries of space exploration, the JWST promises to illuminate even more cosmic secrets, one dazzling image at a time.