James Webb Space Telescope Archives - News@91亚色 /news/tag/james-webb-space-telescope/ Fri, 08 May 2026 21:23:16 +0000 en-CA hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 The force is not-so strong with this one, new research finds /news/2026/05/08/the-force-is-not-so-strong-with-this-one/ Fri, 08 May 2026 19:00:01 +0000 /news/?p=23763 An international group of astronomers, including from 91亚色鈥檚 department of Physics and Astronomy, using the world鈥檚 most powerful space telescope, have made a surprising discovery about a galaxy long, long ago and far, far away: It isn鈥檛 rotating.

That鈥檚 something typically seen in more mature galaxies that are closer to us in space and time, says Ben Forrest, a research scientist at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Davis, and first author on the paper published May 4 in Nature Astronomy.

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Non-rotating early galaxy a surprise to astronomers who say this work helps give clues to origins of the universe

An international group of astronomers, including from 91亚色鈥檚 department of Physics and Astronomy, using the world鈥檚 most powerful space telescope, have made a surprising discovery about a galaxy long, long ago and far, far away: It isn鈥檛 rotating.

That鈥檚 something typically seen in more mature galaxies that are closer to us in space and time, says Ben Forrest, a research scientist at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Davis, and first author on the paper published May 4 in Nature Astronomy. 

Modeling of XMM-VID1-2075

鈥淭his one in particular did not show any evidence of rotation, which was surprising and very interesting,鈥 Forrest said.

According to current theories, as the first galaxies formed, irregularities in gas flows and the influence of gravity set them spinning.

Over many billions of years, some galaxies, especially those within galaxy clusters, merged with each other multiple times and their combined rotations added to or partly canceled each other. That鈥檚 why some galaxies that are closest to Earth (and therefore also relatively recent) can show little overall rotation but a lot of random movement of stars within them.

Prof. Adam Muzzin

This process should take an enormously long time, so it鈥檚 surprising that galaxy XMM-VID1-2075 had achieved this state when the universe was less than two billion years old.

Forrest and colleagues, including second author and 91亚色 Physics and Astronomy Professor Adam Muzzin, who worked closely on the research with Forrest, had previously observed this galaxy with another observatory in Hawaii.

鈥淲e were especially keen to do this observation as it is one the most massive galaxies from the early universe,鈥 says Muzzin. 鈥淒etecting these types of galaxies is challenging and the observations can be subtle, but that keeps the work interesting.鈥

The team used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to take a closer look at XMM-VID1-2075 and two other objects of similar age. With instruments on the Webb telescope, they were able to measure the relative movement of material inside them.

Of the three galaxies they sampled, one is clearly rotating, one is 鈥渒ind of messy,鈥 and one has no rotation but a lot of random motion. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 consistent with some of the most massive galaxies in the local universe, but it was a bit surprising to find it so early on,鈥 says Forrest.

How did this galaxy become a 鈥渟low rotator鈥 in less than two billion years? One possibility is that it is the result not of multiple mergers, but a single collision between two galaxies rotating pretty much in opposite directions. That idea is supported by the team鈥檚 observations.

鈥淔or this particular galaxy, we see a large excess of light off to the side. And so that's suggestive of some other object which has come in and is interacting with the system and potentially changing its dynamics,鈥 Forrest said.

The astronomers are continuing to look for other, similar objects in the early universe. By comparing their observations with simulations, they can test theories about galaxy formation.

Last year, Muzzin was granted the largest ever allotment for a single researcher on the JWST and says that this research is not just about understanding this particular galaxy, but gives us clues as to the origin story of the universe, and through that humanity.

鈥淭his is literally where it all started, where we all came from,鈥 says Muzzin. 鈥淭his research is one important step in understanding that story more fully.鈥

The work was supported by grants from NASA, the Space Telescope Science Institute and National Science Foundation.

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91亚色 is a modern, multi-campus, urban university located in Toronto, Ontario. Backed by a diverse group of students, faculty, staff, alumni and partners, we bring a uniquely global perspective to help solve societal challenges, drive positive change, and prepare our students for meaningful life and career paths. 91亚色's Glendon Campus is home to Southern Ontario's Centre of Excellence for French Language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education. 91亚色鈥檚 campus in Costa Rica offers students exceptional transnational learning opportunities and innovative programs. Together, we can make things right for our communities, our planet, and our future.

Media Contact: Emina Gamulin, 91亚色 Media Relations, 437-217-6362, egamulin@yorku.ca

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Canadian astronomers use Webb to uncover Milky Way鈥檚 turbulent youth through galactic twins /news/2025/12/18/canadian-astronomers-use-webb-to-uncover-milky-ways-turbulent-youth-through-galactic-twins/ Thu, 18 Dec 2025 14:00:41 +0000 /news/?p=23293 How galaxies assemble their stars and grow over billions of years remains one of the central questions in astronomy. Recent results from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), including reports of surprisingly massive and evolved galaxies in the early Universe, have only deepened the mystery. Understanding how our own home galaxy, the Milky Way, built itself over time provides a crucial piece of this broader cosmic puzzle.

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TORONTO, Dec. 18, 2025 鈥 How galaxies assemble their stars and grow over billions of years remains one of the central questions in astronomy. Recent results from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), including reports of surprisingly massive and evolved galaxies in the early Universe, have only deepened the mystery. Understanding how our own home galaxy, the Milky Way, built itself over time provides a crucial piece of this broader cosmic puzzle.

led by 91亚色 PhD graduate Vivian Tan, who studied under the supervision of Faculty of Science Associate Professor Adam Muzzin, provides the most detailed reconstruction yet of how the Milky Way may have evolved from its earliest phases to the structured spiral we see today. Tan and her colleagues examined 877 鈥淢ilky Way twins鈥 鈥 galaxies whose masses and properties closely match what astronomers expect the Milky Way would have looked like at different ages across cosmic time. By observing more distant, and therefore progressively younger examples of these galactic look-alikes, the team effectively charted a timeline of our galaxy鈥檚 life, with surprising results. Our Milky Way鈥檚 history started from a remarkably tumultuous youth before its more settled adulthood.

The findings were recently published in The Astrophysical Journal and were undertaken with the financial support of the Canadian Space Agency.

Rewinding the Milky Way鈥檚 cosmic clock

Mosaic of some of the Milky Way progenitor. Courtesy Vivian Tan

The galaxies in the sample span a remarkable range of cosmic time, from when the Universe was just 1.5 billion years old (12.3 billion years ago) to 10 billion years old (3.5 billion years ago). This period covers as far back as when the Universe was only 10 per cent its current age, a crucial epoch when galaxies transformed from small, irregular systems into the stable disk galaxies familiar today.

To carry out this work, the team combined high-resolution imaging from JWST and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The JWST observations come from the Canadian NIRISS Unbiased Cluster Survey (CANUCS), a major Canadian observing program that uses five massive galaxy clusters as natural gravitational lenses. These clusters magnify background galaxies, revealing faint structures that would otherwise be too distant and too dim to study in detail.

CANUCS takes advantage of Canada鈥檚 hardware contributions to the JWST mission through the Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) instrument, built for the mission by the Canadian Space Agency in partnership with the Universit茅 de Montr茅al, the National Research Council Herzberg Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, and Honeywell. In return, Canadian astronomers received valuable guaranteed observing time on JWST, including the data that enabled this study.

Building galaxies from the inside out

JWST鈥檚 exceptional spatial resolution allowed the researchers to create detailed maps of the stellar mass and star formation activity across each galaxy. These maps show where stars were already in place and where new stars were forming at different phases in a galaxy鈥檚 life.

Across the entire sample, the results point to a clear pattern: galaxies like our Milky Way grow from the inside out. The earliest Milky Way twins are dominated by dense, compact central regions. Over time, their outer parts 鈥 the regions that will later become the disk 鈥 rapidly gain mass and become the primary sites of star formation. This gradual expansion outward creates the extended spiral structures we see in present-day galaxies.

鈥淎stronomers have been modeling the formation of the Milky Way and other spiral galaxies for decades,鈥 says lead author Tan. 鈥淚t's amazing that with the JWST, we can test their models and map out how Milky Way progenitors grow with the Universe itself."

Turbulent teenage years


Infographic of Milky Way progenitors by age of Universe and stellar mass. Courtesy Vivian Tan

The most exciting results of the study also reveal that young Milky Way-like galaxies lived through far more chaotic conditions than their older, more evolved counterparts. The youngest, most distant systems show highly disturbed shapes, asymmetric features, and evidence of frequent galaxy鈥揼alaxy interactions and mergers. These disturbances are signatures of a dynamic environment where galaxies were constantly colliding, accreting material, and triggering intense bursts of star formation.

By contrast, the Milky Way twins at later cosmic times appear much more stable and orderly. Their structures are smoother, their star formation is more evenly distributed, and signs of major interactions become far less common. Overall, they point to a more chaotic past for our Galaxy than we had expected.

Comparing observations and simulations

Tan and her collaborators compared their observations to state-of-the-art computer simulations that track the evolution of Milky Way鈥搇ike galaxies. The simulations broadly agree with the observed inside-out growth and early clumpy, merger-driven activity. However, they sometimes fail to reproduce the high central compactness seen in the earliest galaxies, and they underestimate how quickly mass accumulates in the outer regions between 8 and 11 billion years ago.

These differences provide important constraints on feedback, merger rates, and disk formation models, and highlight the need to refine theoretical predictions in the era of JWST.

Building on Webb鈥檚 early insights

This study marks a significant milestone for Canada鈥檚 growing leadership in JWST galaxy research. With NIRISS and CANUCS continuing to deliver exceptionally deep, high-resolution data, astronomers will be turning to even larger samples of Milky Way鈥搇ike systems and extending their analysis to include gas content, dust, and kinematic structure.

鈥淭his study is a significant step forward in understanding the earliest stages of the formation of our Galaxy,鈥 says Muzzin, co-author of the study. 鈥淗owever, this is not the deepest we have pushed the telescope yet.  In the coming years, with the combination of JWST and gravitational lensing we can move from observing Milky Way twins at 10 per cent their current age to when they are a mere 3 per cent of their current age, truly the embryonic stages of their formation.鈥

Other co-authors from 91亚色 are Ghassan Sarrouh, Visal Sok, Naadiyah Jagga, and Westley Brown. Other co-authors include researchers from the University of Toronto, the University of Ljubljana, Saint Mary鈥檚 University, Kyoto University, the University of Groningen, Columbia University, Wellesley College, the Space Telescope Science Institute, and the National Research Council Herzberg Astronomy & Astrophysics Research Centre.

This team and several international teams already have future JWST observations scheduled to do this. Combined with updated simulations, they will help determine precisely when galaxies like our Milky Way settle into stable disks, how long turbulent phases last, and what physical processes drive the transition between them. By expanding this work, the team aims to build an increasingly complete picture of how galaxies like our own assembled their stars and evolved from the early Universe to the present day.

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91亚色 is a modern, multi-campus, urban university located in Toronto, Ontario. Backed by a diverse group of students, faculty, staff, alumni and partners, we bring a uniquely global perspective to help solve societal challenges, drive positive change, and prepare our students for success. 91亚色's fully bilingual Glendon Campus is home to Southern Ontario's Centre of Excellence for French Language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education. 91亚色鈥檚 campuses in Costa Rica and India offer students exceptional transnational learning opportunities and innovative programs. Together, we can make things right for our communities, our planet, and our future.

Media Contact:

Emina Gamulin, 91亚色 Media Relations, 437-217-6362, egamulin@yorku.ca

Nathalie Ouellette, JWST Outreach Scientist, Universit茅 de Montr茅al,  nathalie@astro.umontreal.ca

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International research led by 91亚色 U prof sheds light on 'lava planets' /news/2025/07/29/international-research-lead-by-york-u-prof-sheds-light-on-molten-rocky-exoplanets/ Tue, 29 Jul 2025 12:00:40 +0000 /news/?p=22581 A new paper led by a 91亚色 professor and published today in Nature Astronomy introduces a simple theoretical framework to describe the evolution of the coupled interior鈥揳tmosphere system of hot rocky exoplanets known as 鈥渓ava planets.鈥

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Novel models of planetary interiors give scientists a framework to interpret current observations of distant exoplanets from space- and ground-based telescopes

Artistic illustration of the internal structure of a lava planet in a cold state, showing a day鈥憇ide magma ocean overlain by a mineral atmosphere.The arrows indicate the direction of heat transport within the planet鈥檚 interior and the thermal radiation emitted from its night side.
Artistic illustration of the internal structure of a lava planet in a cold state, showing a day鈥憇ide magma ocean overlain by a mineral atmosphere.The arrows indicate the direction of heat transport within the planet鈥檚 interior and the thermal radiation emitted from its night side. Credit: Romain Jean-Jaques (Instagram: @romainjean.jacques)

TORONTO, July 29, 2025 鈥 A new paper led by a 91亚色 professor and in Nature Astronomy introduces a simple theoretical framework to describe the evolution of the coupled interior鈥揳tmosphere system of hot rocky exoplanets known as 鈥渓ava planets.鈥

鈥淟ava planets are in such extreme orbital configurations that our knowledge of rocky planets in the solar system does not directly apply, leaving scientists uncertain about what to expect when observing lava planets,鈥 says first author Charles-脡douard Boukar茅, Assistant Professor in 91亚色鈥檚 Department of Physics and Astronomy in the Faculty of Science.

鈥淥ur simulations propose a conceptual framework for interpreting their evolution and provide scenarios to probe their internal dynamics and chemical changes over time. These processes, though greatly amplified in lava planets, are fundamentally the same as those that shape rocky planets in our own solar system.鈥

First author Charles-脡douard Boukar茅

Exotic worlds may unveil processes driving planetary evolution

Lava planets are Earth- to super-Earth鈥搒ized worlds orbiting extremely close to their host stars, completing an orbit in less than a single Earth day. Much like Earth鈥檚 Moon, they are expected to be tidally locked, always showing the same face to their star. Their dayside surfaces reach such extreme temperatures that silicate rocks melt 鈥 and even vaporize 鈥 creating conditions unlike anything in our solar system. These exotic worlds, easily observable due to their ultra short orbital period, provide unique insights into the fundamental processes that shape planetary evolution.

Probing planetary interiors through atmosphere and surface properties

The study combines expertise in geophysical fluid mechanics, exoplanetary atmospheres, and mineralogy to explore how the compositions of lava planets evolve through a process akin to distillation. When rocks melt or vaporize, elements such as magnesium, iron, silicon, oxygen, sodium, and potassium partition differently between vapor, liquid, and solid phases. The unique orbital configuration of lava planets maintains vapor鈥搇iquid and solid鈥搇iquid equilibria over billions of years, driving long-term chemical evolution.

The paper, 鈥淭he role of interior dynamics and differentiation on the surface and atmosphere of lava planets,鈥 was co-authored by Daphn茅 Lemasquerier (University of St Andrews), Nicolas B. Cowan (McGill University), Lisa Dang (University of Waterloo),  Henri Samuel, James Badro, Aur茅lien Falco and S茅bastien Charnoz (Universit茅 Paris Cit茅).

Using unprecedented numerical simulations, the team predicts two end-member evolutionary states:

            鈥 Fully molten interior (likely young planets): The atmosphere mirrors the bulk planetary composition, and heat transport within the molten interior keeps the nightside surface hot and dynamic.

            鈥 Mostly solid interior (likely older planets): Only a shallow lava ocean remains on the dayside, and the atmosphere becomes depleted in elements such as sodium, potassium, and iron.

Testing hypotheses with the James Webb Space Telescope

Boukar茅 explains that this research on lava exoplanets began as a highly exploratory effort with few initial expectations. It builds on a novel modeling approach he developed to study molten rocky planets in collaboration with colleagues at the Institute de Physique du Globe de Paris, Universit茅 Paris Cit茅, published in Nature earlier this year.

What began as an exploratory study has since opened a promising new line of research. The predictions outlined in this work helped secure 100 hours of observation time on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) 鈥 the most advanced infrared observatory ever built, featuring a 6.5鈥憁etre segmented mirror and ultra鈥憇ensitive instruments capable of probing the earliest galaxies and the atmospheres of distant exoplanets with unprecedented precision. These upcoming JWST observations, led by co-author Prof. Dang, will directly test the theoretical framework proposed in this study.

鈥淲e really hope we can observe and distinguish old lava planets from young lava planets. If we can do this, it would mark an important step toward moving beyond the traditional snapshot view of exoplanets,鈥 says Boukar茅.

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91亚色 is a modern, multi-campus, urban university located in Toronto, Ontario. Backed by a diverse group of students, faculty, staff, alumni and partners, we bring a uniquely global perspective to help solve societal challenges, drive positive change, and prepare our students for success. 91亚色's fully bilingual Glendon Campus is home to Southern Ontario's Centre of Excellence for French Language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education. 91亚色鈥檚 campuses in Costa Rica and India offer students exceptional transnational learning opportunities and innovative programs. Together, we can make things right for our communities, our planet, and our future. 

Media Contact: Emina Gamulin, 91亚色 Media Relations, 437-217-6362, egamulin@yorku.ca

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Webb reveals a galaxy sparkling with the universe鈥檚 oldest star clusters /news/2022/09/29/webb-reveals-a-galaxy-sparkling-with-the-universes-oldest-star-clusters/ Thu, 29 Sep 2022 15:16:39 +0000 /news/?p=1837 Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), researchers from the CAnadian NIRISS Unbiased Cluster Survey (CANUCS) team, including 91亚色,聽have identified the most distant globular clusters ever discovered. These dense groups of millions of stars may be relics that contain the first and oldest stars in the universe.

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TORONTO, Sept. 29, 2022 鈥 Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), researchers from the CAnadian NIRISS Unbiased Cluster Survey (CANUCS) team, including 91亚色, have identified the most distant globular clusters ever discovered. These dense groups of millions of stars may be relics that contain the first and oldest stars in the universe.

The early analysis of Webb鈥檚 First Deep Field image, which depicts some of the universe鈥檚 earliest galaxies, is published today in .

Adam Muzzin

鈥淕lobular clusters are quite mysterious. They orbit the Milky Way and other galaxies, however, we have little idea where they come from,鈥 says study co-author Associate Professor Adam Muzzin of 91亚色鈥檚 Faculty of Science. 鈥淲ith the James Webb Space Telescope, we were able to see incredibly far into the past, much farther than we鈥檝e ever been able to see before 鈥 and what we saw was spectacular.鈥

Ghassan Sarrouh

91亚色 PhD student Ghassan Sarrouh, also a co-author on the research, says 鈥淚n this case, we were able to identify several globular clusters, collections of ancient stars, far beyond our Milky Way some nine billion light years away when the universe was about a third of its current age. It鈥檚 a really exciting and significant finding.鈥

The research team looked at one galaxy in particular to understand what was happening around it.

鈥淛WST was built to find the first stars and the first galaxies and to help us understand the origins of complexity in the universe, such as the chemical elements and the building blocks of life,鈥 says Lamiya Mowla, Dunlap Fellow at the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Toronto and co-lead author of the study. 鈥淭his discovery in Webb鈥檚 First Deep Field is already providing a detailed look at the earliest phase of star formation, confirming the incredible power of JWST.鈥

In the finely detailed Webb鈥檚 First Deep Field image, the researchers zeroed in on what they鈥檝e dubbed 鈥渢he Sparkler galaxy,鈥 which is nine billion light years away. This galaxy got its name for the compact objects appearing as small yellow-red dots surrounding it, referred to by the researchers as 鈥渟parkles.鈥 The team posited that these sparkles could either be young clusters actively forming stars 鈥 born three billion years after the Big Bang at the peak of star formation 鈥 or old globular clusters. Globular clusters are ancient collections of stars from a galaxy鈥檚 infancy and contain clues about its earliest phases of formation and growth.

From their initial analysis of 12 of these compact objects, the researchers determined that five of them are not only globular clusters but among the oldest ones known.

This illustration shows a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing, which is used by astronomers to study very distant and very faint galaxies. Note that the scale has been greatly exaggerated in this diagram. In reality, the distant galaxy is much further away and much smaller. Lensing clusters are clusters of elliptical galaxies whose gravity is so strong that they bend the light from the galaxies behind them. This produces distorted, and often multiple images of the background galaxy. But despite this distortion, gravitational lenses allow for greatly improved observations as the gravity bends the light鈥檚 path towards Hubble, amplifying the light and making otherwise invisible objects observable. A team of astronomers has used Abell 383, one such gravitational lens, to observe a distant galaxy whose light is resolved into two images by the cluster. The gravitational lensing effect means that astronomers have been able to determine fascinating insights about the galaxy that would not normally be visible even with Hubble or large ground-based telescopes. Among their discoveries is that the distant galaxy鈥檚 stars are very old, meaning that galaxies probably formed earlier in cosmic history than we first thought.

鈥淟ooking at the first images from JWST and discovering old globular clusters around distant galaxies was an incredible moment, one that wasn鈥檛 possible with previous Hubble Space Telescope imaging,鈥 says Kartheik G. Iyer, Dunlap Fellow at the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Toronto and co-lead author of the study. 鈥淪ince we could observe the sparkles across a range of wavelengths, we could model them and better understand their physical properties, like how old they are and how many stars they contain. We hope the knowledge that globular clusters can be observed at from such great distances with JWST will spur further science and searches for similar objects.鈥

The Milky Way galaxy has about 150 globular clusters, and how and when exactly these dense clumps of stars formed is not well understood. Astronomers know that globular clusters can be extremely old, but it is incredibly challenging to measure their ages. Using very distant globular clusters to age-date the first stars in distant galaxies has not been done before and is only possible with JWST.

Until now, astronomers could not see the surrounding compact objects of the Sparkler galaxy with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). This changed with JWST's increased resolution and sensitivity, unveiling the tiny dots surrounding the galaxy for the first time in Webb鈥檚 First Deep Field image. The Sparkler galaxy is special because it is magnified by a factor of 100 due to an effect called gravitational lensing 鈥 where the SMACS 0723 galaxy cluster in the foreground distorts what is behind it, much like a giant magnifying glass. Moreover, gravitational lensing produces three separate images of the Sparkler, allowing astronomers to study the galaxy in greater detail.

鈥淥ur study of the Sparkler highlights the tremendous power in combining the unique capabilities of JWST with the natural magnification afforded by gravitational lensing,鈥 says CANUCS team lead Chris Willott from the National Research Council鈥檚 Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Centre. 鈥淭he team is excited about more discoveries to come when JWST turns its eye on the CANUCS galaxy clusters next month.鈥

The researchers combined new data from JWST鈥檚 Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) with HST archival data. NIRCam detects faint objects using longer and redder wavelengths to observe past what is visible to the human eye and even HST. Both magnifications due to the lensing by the galaxy cluster and the high resolution of JWST are what made observing compact objects possible.

The Canadian-made Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) instrument on the JWST provided independent confirmation that the objects are old globular clusters because the researchers did not observe oxygen emission lines 鈥 emissions with measurable spectra given off by young clusters that are actively forming stars. NIRISS also helped unravel the geometry of the triply lensed images of the Sparkler.

JWST will observe the CANUCS fields starting in October 2022, leveraging JWST data to examine five massive clusters of galaxies, around which the researchers expect to find more such systems. Future studies will also model the galaxy cluster to understand the lensing effect and execute more robust analyses to explain the star formation histories.

Collaborating institutions include Saint Mary鈥檚 University and institutions in the United States and Europe. The research was supported by the Canadian Space Agency and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

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91亚色 is a modern, multi-campus, urban university located in Toronto, Ontario. Backed by a diverse group of students, faculty, staff, alumni and partners, we bring a uniquely global perspective to help solve societal challenges, drive positive change and prepare our students for success. 91亚色's fully bilingual Glendon Campus is home to Southern Ontario's Centre of Excellence for French Language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education. 91亚色鈥檚 campuses in Costa Rica and India offer students exceptional transnational learning opportunities and innovative programs. Together, we can make things right for our communities, our planet, and our future.

Media Contact:

Sandra McLean, 91亚色 Media Relations, 416-272-6317, sandramc@yorku.ca

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91亚色 scientist helps build instrument on new James Webb Space Telescope /news/2021/12/15/york-university-scientist-helps-build-instrument-on-new-james-webb-space-telescope/ Wed, 15 Dec 2021 14:21:21 +0000 https://news.yorku.ca/?p=16772 TORONTO, Dec. XX, 2021 鈥 The new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) 鈥 a collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency 鈥 is expected to launch this month with the Canadian-built Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS). It will take images and spectra of fainter objects than the Hubble Telescope ever could, and it鈥檚 creating an astronomical amount of excitement.

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Associate Professor Adam Muzzin leads working group studying young galaxies

TORONTO, Dec. 15, 2021 鈥 The new (JWST) 鈥 a collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency 鈥 is expected to launch this month with the Canadian-built (NIRISS). It will take images and spectra of fainter objects than the Hubble Telescope ever could, and it鈥檚 creating an astronomical amount of excitement.

What will the telescope do for astronomy? 鈥淓verything. It鈥檚 the most powerful telescope of all time, blowing away what the Hubble Space telescope can do. It will completely revolutionize all aspects of astronomy,鈥 says 91亚色 Associate Professor Adam Muzzin of the Faculty of Science.

One of the things this new telescope will be able to do is see infrared light. This will be important for Muzzin, a member of the Canadian instrument team that built the NIRISS, as he leads one of the working groups on the large Canadian NIRISS Unbiased Cluster Survey (CANUCS) project. The NIRISS instrument can take higher resolution images than Hubble and will allow Muzzin and other astronomers to better study objects in space, including the formation of planets, as well as distant galaxies. It鈥檚 a project 91亚色 grad student Ghassan Sarrouh, a next generation astrophysicist, is currently working on for his MSc thesis.

Video of Profs Adam Muzzin and Cemile Marsan by freelance science journalist Dan Falk when he was a Science Communicator in Residence at 91亚色

The CANUCS project will look at how some of the first galaxies, some 13 billion light years away, were formed and how they grew. But as Muzzin says: 鈥淭he universe is expanding, with everything moving away from us, and so the light coming from distant galaxies is stretching and shifting towards the red part of the electromagnetic spectrum. If we want to see far-away galaxies from the early days of our universe, we need to able to see infrared.鈥

Muzzin is one of the lucky few to have guaranteed observing time on the telescope for his work on the instrument, along with 91亚色 Visiting Professor Cemile Marsan in the 91亚色 Department of Physics and Astronomy, one of only 10 Canadians to receive their own observing time on the telescope in open competition.

Marsan鈥檚 project will look at massive, extreme galaxies in the distant Universe that were fully formed when the Universe was less than 10 per cent of its current age. According to physics theories, these聽galaxies should not exist.

"Over the last decade, astronomers have compiled a myriad of lines of observational evidence hinting that these extreme structures 鈥 being 10 times more massive than today鈥檚 Milky Way 鈥 must exist in the young Universe, but we can鈥檛 say much more about them due to current instrumental limitations," says Marsan. "With JWST, we will be able to 'see' for the first time how such rare and exceptionally massive galaxies were able to assemble during an epoch when the Universe is expected to be busy building smaller structures."

Are these galaxies experiencing a rapid build-up of stars in conjunction with the growth of their supermassive black holes at their centers? Is there something unique about the environment they reside in? These are just two of the questions Marsan hopes the new telescope will help answer.

The experts:

Muzzin, Marsan and Sarrouh are available to discuss their celestial projects.

Assistant Professor , an expert in astronomy and space exploration in the Faculty of Science, can discuss the mission, what Canada contributed, what the JWST will allow astronomers to study over the next decade, what it will do for astronomy and the excitement in the astronomy community.

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