A team of astronomers at the University of Arizona has used the James Webb Space Telescope to identify a 3-million-light-year-long galactic filament from the early universe. This filament, which consists of 10 galaxies, provides valuable insights into the fundamental architecture of the universe.

The filament, resembling pearls on an invisible string, is anchored by a luminous quasar—a galaxy with an active, supermassive black hole at its core. The team believes that this filament will eventually evolve into a massive cluster of galaxies similar to the well-known Coma Cluster.

This discovery marks one of the earliest filamentary structures associated with a distant quasar. It is also the first time that a structure of this kind has been observed in such early stages of the universe and with 3D detail.

According to Feige Wang, an assistant research professor at the University of Arizona and lead author of the study, the filament is surprisingly long and narrow. The team did not expect to find such a distinct structure.

The discovery was made as part of the ASPIRE project—an international collaboration led by the University of Arizona. The project aims to study the cosmic environments of the earliest black holes. In addition to identifying the filament, the study also investigated the properties of eight quasars in the young universe. The team confirmed that the central black holes of these quasars range in mass from 600 million to 2 billion times the mass of the sun.

To form such supermassive black holes in a short period of time, two criteria must be satisfied. First, there needs to be a massive “seed” black hole to start the growth process. Second, there must be efficient mechanisms for the rapid accretion of matter onto the black hole.

This discovery and the study of quasars provide valuable insights into the assembly and growth of supermassive black holes. It adds to our understanding of how the cosmic web, consisting of interconnected filamentary structures, forms and evolves over time.

The findings from this study have been published in two papers in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The post University of Arizona Astronomers Discover 3-Million-Light-Year Galactic Filament appeared first on TS2 SPACE.