The most distant carbon ever seen was discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in a galaxy we see as existing just 350 million years after the Big Bang.
The detection is notable because not only is it the oldest known carbon, it is also the first time an element heavier than hydrogen or helium (what astronomers call “metals”) has been confirmed so early. Universe.
“Previous research suggested that carbon began forming in large quantities relatively late, about a billion years later. Big BangRoberto Maiolino, from the Kavli Institute for Astronomy at the University of Cambridge in England, said: expression. “But we found that carbon formed much earlier; it may even be the oldest metal.”
Relating to: What is the Big Bang theory?
Hydrogen and helium in the universe were born in the furnace of the Big Bang, but except for some lithium, all other elements had to wait to arrive from stars. nuclear fusion While reactions inside these stars create carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and the like, the raw energy of a supernova explosion can create many other, even heavier, elements. neutron star mergers.
Many of these elements, especially carbon, are crucial to the formation of planets and life as we know them, but it took many generations of stars to accumulate enough carbon and other metals to be detectable at such great distances and to be useful in cosmic chemistry. .
However JWSTdetection of carbon in galaxy GS-z12 — located at: redshift The value of 12.5, which corresponds to a lookback period of 13.4 billion years, shows that stars lived quickly during the formation years of the universe. To accumulate detectable amounts of carbon in such a short time, many generations would have to have come and gone in rapid succession. (The Big Bang occurred about 13.8 billion years ago.)
“We were surprised to see carbon so early in the universe, because the first stars were thought to produce much more oxygen than carbon,” Maiolino said. “We thought that carbon was enriched much later by completely different processes, but the fact that it appeared so early gave us the impression that it was the first stars “It might have worked very differently.”
GS-z12 is a compact, low-mass galaxy compared to ours Milky Way but it is relatively large for the initial time period in which we found it. small but rapidly growing galaxies.
“When we observe it, it’s just the embryo of a galaxy, but it could develop into something as big as the Milky Way,” said Francesco D’Eugenio of the Kavli Institute, who led the research.
The discovery of carbon this early potentially changes what we know about the course of cosmic chemistry. Carbon is a key component of cosmic dust grains that combine to form larger objects. asteroids, planet predictions and finally the planets themselves. Indeed, the Earth is believed to consist mostly of carbonaceous objects. Carbon is also a vital component of life as we know it.
“The first stars are the holy grail of chemical evolution,” D’Eugenio said. “Since they consist only of primitive elements [i.e hydrogen and helium exclusively]They behave very differently than modern stars. “By studying how and when the first metals formed inside stars, we can determine a time frame for the first steps on the path to the formation of life.”
JWST’s Near Infrared Spectrometer (NIRSpec), which detects carbon, also found hints of oxygen and neon in GS-z12, but more data is needed to confirm the presence of these elements.
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While carbon in GS-z12 has been confirmed as the oldest metal, the galaxy may not hold this record for very long. Astronomers using JWST highest redshift galaxy discovered to dateWith a redshift of 14.2, it marks just 290 million years after the Big Bang. It was detected in the absorption line spectrum of oxygen, but this discovery still needs to be confirmed through peer review. Once published in a journal, this will be the first example of an element heavier than hydrogen or helium.
Either way, the new finding shows that elements could have been produced in significant quantities in the early universe, and that stars lived and died faster than astronomers at the time thought.
Moreover, the presence of carbon and oxygen in the early universe means that astronomers and astrobiologists can perhaps begin to talk about the existence of planets and perhaps life in the earlier universe.
The discovery of carbon in GS-z12 will be published in an upcoming issue of Astronomy & Astrophysics, but a preview of the article is available Here.