Indian Astronomers Discover Alaknanda: Second-Farthest Known Spiral Galaxy Using JWST
Indian astronomers discover Alaknanda: 2nd farthest spiral galaxy using JWST data.
insightsonindia.com
Key Points for RAS
- Indian astronomers identified Alaknanda, the second-farthest known spiral galaxy, using James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) data
- The galaxy was observed at redshift z approximately 4, about 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang
- The discovery advances understanding of galaxy formation in the early universe
Indian astronomers using James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) data identified Alaknanda, the second-farthest known spiral galaxy, observed at redshift z approximately 4, about 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang. The discovery advances understanding of galaxy formation in the early universe.
Frequently Asked Questions
1 What is Alaknanda?
Alaknanda is a large candidate grand-design spiral galaxy identified in JWST survey data at a photometric redshift of about 4.05.
2 Who reported the discovery?
The Astronomy & Astrophysics paper is by Rashi Jain and Yogesh Wadadekar of the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.
3 Why is the discovery important?
A spiral galaxy at z about 4 implies that massive disks and spiral galaxies were already in place roughly 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang.
4 Which observations supported the finding?
The study used JWST and Hubble Space Telescope filter measurements from the UNCOVER and Medium Band Mega Science surveys and reported two symmetric spiral arms in the morphology.
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