MSGID: 1:317/3 649e5a75   
   PID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
   TID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
    Earliest strands of the cosmic web    
      
     Date:   
         June 29, 2023   
     Source:   
         NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center   
     Summary:   
         Galaxies are not scattered randomly across the universe. They   
         gather together not only into clusters, but into vast interconnected   
         filamentary structures with gigantic barren voids in between. This   
         'cosmic web' started out tenuous and became more distinct over   
         time as gravity drew matter together.   
      
      
         Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIN Email   
      
   ==========================================================================   
   FULL STORY   
   ==========================================================================   
   Galaxies are not scattered randomly across the universe. They gather   
   together not only into clusters, but into vast interconnected filamentary   
   structures with gigantic barren voids in between. This "cosmic web"   
   started out tenuous and became more distinct over time as gravity drew   
   matter together.   
      
   Astronomers using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope have discovered a   
   thread- like arrangement of 10 galaxies that existed just 830 million   
   years after the big bang. The 3 million light-year-long structure is   
   anchored by a luminous quasar -- a galaxy with an active, supermassive   
   black hole at its core. The team believes the filament will eventually   
   evolve into a massive cluster of galaxies, much like the well-known Coma   
   Cluster in the nearby universe.   
      
   "I was surprised by how long and how narrow this filament is," said team   
   member Xiaohui Fan of the University of Arizona in Tucson. "I expected   
   to find something, but I didn't expect such a long, distinctly thin   
   structure."  "This is one of the earliest filamentary structures that   
   people have ever found associated with a distant quasar," added Feige   
   Wang of the University of Arizona in Tucson, the principal investigator   
   of this program.   
      
   This discovery is from the ASPIRE project (A SPectroscopic survey of   
   biased halos In the Reionization Era), whose main goal is to study the   
   cosmic environments of the earliest black holes. In total, the program   
   will observe 25 quasars that existed within the first billion years   
   after the big bang, a time known as the Epoch of Reionization.   
      
   "The last two decades of cosmology research have given us a robust   
   understanding of how the cosmic web forms and evolves. ASPIRE aims   
   to understand how to incorporate the emergence of the earliest massive   
   black holes into our current story of the formation of cosmic structure,"   
   explained team member Joseph Hennawi of the University of California,   
   Santa Barbara.   
      
   Growing Monsters Another part of the study investigates the properties   
   of eight quasars in the young universe. The team confirmed that their   
   central black holes, which existed less than a billion years after the   
   big bang, range in mass from 600 million to 2 billion times the mass   
   of our Sun. Astronomers continue seeking evidence to explain how these   
   black holes could grow so large so fast.   
      
   "To form these supermassive black holes in such a short time, two criteria   
   must be satisfied. First, you need to start growing from a massive 'seed'   
   black hole. Second, even if this seed starts with a mass equivalent to   
   a thousand Suns, it still needs to accrete a million times more matter   
   at the maximum possible rate for its entire lifetime," explained Wang.   
      
   "These unprecedented observations are providing important clues about   
   how black holes are assembled. We have learned that these black holes   
   are situated in massive young galaxies that provide the reservoir of   
   fuel for their growth," said Jinyi Yang of the University of Arizona,   
   who is leading the study of black holes with ASPIRE.   
      
   Webb also provided the best evidence yet of how early supermassive black   
   holes potentially regulate the formation of stars in their galaxies. While   
   supermassive black holes accrete matter, they also can power tremendous   
   outflows of material. These winds can extend far beyond the black hole   
   itself, on a galactic scale, and can have a significant impact on the   
   formation of stars.   
      
   "Strong winds from black holes can suppress the formation of stars in   
   the host galaxy. Such winds have been observed in the nearby universe   
   but have never been directly observed in the Epoch of Reionization,"   
   said Yang. "The scale of the wind is related to the structure of the   
   quasar. In the Webb observations, we are seeing that such winds existed   
   in the early universe."  These results were published in two papers in   
   The Astrophysical Journal Letters on June 29.   
      
       * RELATED_TOPICS   
             o Space_&_Time   
                   # Black_Holes # Galaxies # Astrophysics # Astronomy #   
                   Stars # Cosmology # Big_Bang # Cosmic_Rays   
       * RELATED_TERMS   
             o Dark_matter o Galaxy o Large-scale_structure_of_the_cosmos o   
             Galaxy_formation_and_evolution o Supergiant o Globular_cluster   
             o Shape_of_the_Universe o Open_cluster   
      
   ==========================================================================   
   Story Source: Materials provided by   
   NASA/Goddard_Space_Flight_Center. Note: Content may be edited for style   
   and length.   
      
      
   ==========================================================================   
   Journal Reference:   
      1. Feige Wang, Jinyi Yang, Joseph F. Hennawi, Xiaohui Fan, Fengwu Sun,   
         Jaclyn B. Champagne, Tiago Costa, Melanie Habouzit, Ryan Endsley,   
         Zihao Li, Xiaojing Lin, Romain A. Meyer, Jan-Torge Schindler,   
         Yunjing Wu, Eduardo Ban~ados, Aaron J. Barth, Aklant K. Bhowmick,   
         Rebekka Bieri, Laura Blecha, Sarah Bosman, Zheng Cai, Luis   
         Colina, Thomas Connor, Frederick B. Davies, Roberto Decarli,   
         Gisella De Rosa, Alyssa B. Drake, Eiichi Egami, Anna-Christina   
         Eilers, Analis E. Evans, Emanuele Paolo Farina, Zoltan Haiman,   
         Linhua Jiang, Xiangyu Jin, Hyunsung D. Jun, Koki Kakiichi,   
         Yana Khusanova, Girish Kulkarni, Mingyu Li, Weizhe Liu, Federica   
         Loiacono, Alessandro Lupi, Chiara Mazzucchelli, Masafusa Onoue,   
         Maria A. Pudoka, Sofi'a Rojas-Ruiz, Yue Shen, Michael A. Strauss,   
         Wei Leong Tee, Benny Trakhtenbrot, Maxime Trebitsch, Bram Venemans,   
         Marta Volonteri, Fabian Walter, Zhang-Liang Xie, Minghao Yue,   
         Haowen Zhang, Huanian Zhang, Siwei Zou. A SPectroscopic Survey   
         of Biased Halos in the Reionization Era (ASPIRE): JWST Reveals a   
         Filamentary Structure around a z = 6.61 Quasar. The Astrophysical   
         Journal Letters, 2023; 951 (1): L4 DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/accd6f   
   ==========================================================================   
      
   Link to news story:   
   https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/06/230629173611.htm   
      
   --- up 1 year, 17 weeks, 3 days, 10 hours, 50 minutes   
    * Origin: -=> Castle Rock BBS <=- Now Husky HPT Powered! (1:317/3)   
   SEEN-BY: 15/0 106/201 114/705 123/120 153/7715 218/700 226/30 227/114   
   SEEN-BY: 229/110 112 113 307 317 400 426 428 470 664 700 291/111 292/854   
   SEEN-BY: 298/25 305/3 317/3 320/219 396/45 5075/35   
   PATH: 317/3 229/426