NASA’s Webb Uncovers Dense Cosmic Knot in the Early Universe

Motions of Gas Around an Extremely Red Quasar (NIRSpec IFU)
Credits: Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
Science: Dominika Wylezalek (ZAH), Andrey Vayner (JHU), Nadia Zakamska (JHU), Q-3D Team
Image Processing: Leah Hustak (STScI)

Astronomers looking into the early universe have made a surprising discovery using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope: a cluster of massive galaxies in the process of forming around an extremely red quasar. The result will expand our understanding of how galaxy clusters in the early universe came together and formed the cosmic web we see today.

A quasar, a special type of active galactic nucleus (AGN), is a compact region with a supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy. Gas falling into a supermassive black hole makes the quasar bright enough to outshine all the galaxy’s stars.

The quasar Webb explored, called SDSS J165202.64+172852.3, existed 11.5 billion years ago. It is unusually red not just because of its intrinsic red color, but also because the galaxy’s light has been redshifted by its vast distance. That made Webb, having unparalleled sensitivity in infrared wavelengths, perfectly suited to examine the galaxy in detail.

This quasar is one of the most powerful known galactic nuclei that’s been seen at such an extreme distance. Astronomers had speculated that the quasar’s extreme emission could cause a “galactic wind,” pushing free gas out of its host galaxy and possibly greatly influencing future star formation there.

To investigate the movement of the gas, dust, and stellar material in the galaxy, the team used the telescope’s Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec). This powerful instrument uses a technique called spectroscopy to look at the movement of various outflows and winds surrounding the quasar. NIRSpec can simultaneously gather spectra across the telescope’s whole field of view, instead of just from one point at a time, enabling Webb to simultaneously examine the quasar, its galaxy, and the wider surroundings.

Previous studies by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories called attention to the quasar’s powerful outflows, and astronomers had speculated that its host galaxy could be merging with some unseen partner. But the team was not expecting Webb’s NIRSpec data to clearly indicate it was not just one galaxy, but at least three more swirling around it. Thanks to spectra over a broad area, the motions of all this surrounding material could be mapped, resulting in the conclusion that the red quasar was in fact part of a dense knot of galaxy formation.

“There are few galaxy protoclusters known at this early time. It’s hard to find them, and very few have had time to form since the big bang,” said astronomer Dominika Wylezalek of Heidelberg University in Germany, who led the study with Webb. “This may eventually help us understand how galaxies in dense environments evolve. It’s an exciting result.”

Using the observations from NIRSpec, the team was able to confirm three galactic companions to this quasar and show how they are connected. Archival data from Hubble hint that there may be even more. Images from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 had shown extended material surrounding the quasar and its galaxy, prompting its selection for this study into its outflow and the effects on its host galaxy. Now, the team suspects they could have been looking at the core of a whole cluster of galaxies – only now revealed by Webb’s crisp imaging.

"Our first look at the data quickly revealed clear signs of major interactions between the neighboring galaxies,” shared team member Andrey Vayner of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. “The sensitivity of the NIRSpec instrument was immediately apparent, and it was clear to me that we are in a new era of infrared spectroscopy."

The three confirmed galaxies are orbiting each other at incredibly high speeds, an indication that a great deal of mass is present. When combined with how closely they are packed into the region around this quasar, the team believes this marks one of the densest known areas of galaxy formation in the early universe. “Even a dense knot of dark matter isn’t sufficient to explain it,” Wylezalek says. “We think we could be seeing a region where two massive halos of dark matter are merging together.” Dark matter is an invisible component of the universe that holds galaxies and galaxy clusters together, and is thought to form a “halo” that extends beyond the stars in these structures.

The study conducted by Wylezalek’s team is part of Webb’s investigations into the early universe. With its unprecedented ability to look back in time, the telescope is already being used to investigate how the first galaxies were formed and evolved, and how black holes formed and influenced the structure of the universe. The team is planning follow-up observations into this unexpected galaxy proto-cluster, and hope to use it to understand how dense, chaotic galaxy clusters like this one form, and how it’s affected by the active, supermassive black hole at its heart.

These results will be published in the The Astrophysical Journal Letters. This research was completed as part of Webb’s Early Release Science program #1335.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world's premier space science observatory. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

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Credits:

Media Contact:

Bethany Downer
European Space Agency, Paris, France

Ninja Menning
European Space Agency, Paris, France

Christine Pulliam
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland

Science Contact:

Dominika Wylezalek
Center for Astronomy of Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany

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Contact Us: Direct inquiries to the News Team.

Related Links and Documents:

• Science Paper: The science paper by D. Wylezalek et al., PDF (3.62 MB)

Source: NASA's James Webb Space Telescope/News

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Petite AGNs Reveal New Secrets

Figure 1. Michelle and T-ReCS mid-infrared images of some of the low-luminosity AGN in this study. Some of the galaxies, such as NGC 1052, have strong, compact nuclei reminiscent of higher-luminosity Seyfert galaxies or quasars. Others, like NGC 3169, show extended emission that could be due to stars forming around the active nucleus. To the right of each of the mid-infrared images is a Hubble Space Telescope optical image of the same region.

Figure 2. The strength of the silicate dust emission feature in many of the low-luminosity AGN (denoted S10, the black circles), is unusually large compared to the amount of gas in their nucleus (measured by log NH). One possible explanation is that these galaxies harbour just a small amount of optically-thin dust, which is expected according to some models that predict the disappearance of the dusty torus in low-luminosity AGN.

High-resolution, mid-infrared observations at Gemini North and South have revealed a wide range of morphologies for low-luminosity active galactic nuclei (AGN). While the data present a broad characterization of these objects' properties in this spectral region, they also present an interesting puzzle to ponder.

Active galactic nuclei (AGN), the supermassive black holes that feed on gas, dust, and stars at the centers of galaxies, spend most of their existence in a near dormant state. Until recently, astronomers had observed only a handful of low-luminosity AGN in the infrared at high resolution. Therefore, we didn't have a good, general overview of their properties in this potentially revealing spectral region. Our observations of 22 low-luminosity AGN, taken with both of Gemini's mid-infrared instruments (Michelle and T-ReCS), have changed this situation.

The images reveal a wide range of morphologies, from galaxies dominated by a central, compact source (much like images of higher-luminosity Seyferts and quasars) to those with weak nuclei embedded in large amounts of extended, mid-infrared emitting material that could signal star formation around the nucleus (Figure 1). To complement these observations, we combed the literature for other high-resolution measurements that reveal the emission of the nucleus from radio to X-ray frequencies. We also took advantage of low-resolution but exquisitely sensitive spectroscopy from the Spitzer Space Telescope archive.

A rather complex picture emerged from the data. In some of the most weakly-accreting AGN, even Gemini's resolution doesn’t separate the infrared emission of the nucleus from that of the surrounding galaxy. However, we do find some cases where the infrared emission comes not from dust or the outer regions of the accretion disk, but from synchrotron radiation –– fast-moving electrons spiraling round magnetic field lines in the galaxy’s core. In a couple of those galaxies, the evidence suggests that the dusty torus is indeed absent (see sidebar). This is predicted by some models describing the nature and origin of the torus.

The more strongly-accreting AGN (but still weaker than most of those studied to date), look in many ways a lot like "conventional" Seyfert galaxies in the infrared. It's possible, then, that these low-luminosity AGN aren't as different as we had thought. However, the data do present some tantalizing hints that in these AGN, too, the dusty torus no longer exists. When we compare the dust emission features in their Spitzer spectra with the amount of gas around the nucleus (determined from published X-ray observations), it appears that there is an unusually small amount of dust compared to gas (Figure 2). This, again, is expected from some models that attempt to explain the origin of the torus.

If the torus doesn't exist in these objects, then we will need to find another way of explaining their Seyfert-like infrared emission. To better understand the observations, we have started to compare detailed models of the accretion disk, dust and synchrotron emission to the data. But right now we are simply happy to have high-quality observations to puzzle over in the months to come.

The article about this research has been published by the Astronomical Journal.

AGN: A Closer Look

When astronomers think about active galactic nuclei (AGN), the first thing that springs to mind is often one of the more dramatic examples: a luminous quasar or bright Seyfert galaxy, for instance. In reality, though, an active galaxy will spend only a tiny fraction of its existence in such a spectacular state. Most of the time the central engine will be more like the near-dormant black hole in the center of our own Galaxy, starved of the gas that feeds it and shining only weakly. These "low-luminosity AGN" differ from their luminous cousins in other ways, too.

Theory predicts that the accretion disk of material circling the black hole is extremely hot, puffed-up, and unable to radiate its energy efficiently. Also, whereas quasars and luminous Seyfert galaxies are surrounded by dusty clouds that can hide the accretion disk (collectively known as the "torus"), several models suggest that low-luminosity AGN should have bare, almost dust-free centers. Given how common, and yet how odd, these low-luminosity AGN appear to be, we need to test our hypotheses about them if we want to really understand how active galaxies ingest material and evolve over the course of their lives.

Dust near an AGN heats up and emits copious amounts of infrared radiation. The outer regions of the accretion disk in a low-luminosity AGN might well do the same. Therefore, the natural place to look for signatures of the torus and accreting material is the infrared region of the spectrum. Although ground-based telescopes aren’t as sensitive to infrared light as space-borne observatories like Spitzer –– the Earth's atmosphere itself shines brightly at infrared wavelengths –– telescopes like Gemini have a big advantage: spatial resolution.

Low-luminosity AGN are, by definition, faint compared to the stars that surround the galaxy’s black hole. This means that astronomers need the high resolution of a big ground-based telescope (about a factor of 10 better than Spitzer at a wavelength of 10 microns), due to its ability to separate the central engine from the host galaxy. Only then will astronomers get an uncontaminated view of the nuclei of these commonplace yet poorly-understood objects.

Gemini's mission is to advance our knowledge of the Universe by providing the international Gemini Community with forefront access to the entire sky.

The Gemini Observatory is an international collaboration with two identical 8-meter telescopes. The Frederick C. Gillett Gemini Telescope is located on Mauna Kea, Hawai'i (Gemini North) and the other telescope on Cerro Pachón in central Chile (Gemini South); together the twin telescopes provide full coverage over both hemispheres of the sky. The telescopes incorporate technologies that allow large, relatively thin mirrors, under active control, to collect and focus both visible and infrared radiation from space.

The Gemini Observatory provides the astronomical communities in seven partner countries with state-of-the-art astronomical facilities that allocate observing time in proportion to each country's contribution. In addition to financial support, each country also contributes significant scientific and technical resources. The national research agencies that form the Gemini partnership include: the US National Science Foundation (NSF), the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), the Canadian National Research Council (NRC), the Chilean Comisión Nacional de Investigación Cientifica y Tecnológica (CONICYT), the Australian Research Council (ARC), the Argentinean Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) and the Brazilian Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico CNPq). The observatory is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the NSF. The NSF also serves as the executive agency for the international partnership.