\t\t\t\t\tSign up to see the future, today<\/p>\n
Can\u2019t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech<\/p>\n
Using the NASA\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope, a team of researchers led by University of Minnesota astrophysicist Mason Huberty had a closer look at a group of almost 10,000 galaxies spanning billions of light-years in the Fornax constellation. As detailed in a new paper<\/a> published in The Astrophysical Journal, they honed in on a small space in the region that they thought was entirely unoccupied.<\/p>\n But to their astonishment, they observed a single emission line emanating from it \u2014 twice over a span of just three months. Emission lines are bright, narrow bands of light emitted at a specific wavelength by distant celestial objects and other phenomena. Puzzlingly, prior observations from the same region didn\u2019t feature the same reading.<\/p>\n Put simply, the JWST stared into the abyss \u2014\u00a0and the abyss stared back.<\/p>\n Instead of hunting down already known objects, Huberty and his colleagues tried to use the James Webb\u2019s Near-Infrared Spectrograph to uncover new ones, as Science Alert explains<\/a>. The team examined what they thought was an empty region twice, in August and November 2023, at different angles to rule out any artifacts.<\/p>\n Out of seven total detections of emissions in the region, one stood out because they couldn\u2019t match it to a distant galaxy.<\/p>\n It also stood out as the only near-infrared emission without any other accompanying emission lines near it. It should\u2019ve also shown up in earlier James Webb observations since it\u2019s technically bright enough \u2014 but didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n The astronomers offered several possible explanations, none of which \u201cprovide a fully satisfactory explanation,\u201d according to their paper. The emission line may have been produced by a galaxy dating back to the earliest days of the Universe. It could\u2019ve also come from a younger galaxy or a supernova, both of which are usually accompanied by other emission lines. Finally, the researchers propose that it could\u2019ve been the result of a black hole devouring a star \u2014 a guess that would require plenty of other data to confirm.<\/p>\n \u201cFollow-up observations are essential to confirm the redshift and determine the physical origin of the emission,\u201d the team concluded in their paper. \u201cDeeper, more sensitive spectroscopy could reveal additional emission lines and definitively establish the redshift and nature of the source.\u201d<\/p>\n