Using high-resolution images, NIRCam, a near-infrared camera aboard the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, has led astronomers to discover COSMOS-74706, one of the earliest known barred spiral galaxies. This discovery is pivotal in shaping our understanding of cosmic evolution.
COSMOS-74706: Unsharp mask overlaid on F200W, F277W, and F356W filter configurations. The white lines represent logarithmic spirals along the galaxy’s arm structure while the lines indicate the north-south bar structure. Image credit: Daniel Ivanov.
The barred spiral galaxy COSMOS-74706 existed approximately 11.5 billion years ago.
“This galaxy developed its bar just two billion years after the universe’s inception,” stated Daniel Ivanov, a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh.
“Stellar bars are linear features found at the centers of galaxies, confirming their namesakes.”
COSMOS-74706’s bar comprises a dense collection of stars and gas, appearing as a bright line bisecting the galaxy when viewed perpendicularly to its plane.
Stellar bars significantly influence a galaxy’s evolution, funneling gas from the outskirts into the center, which feeds the supermassive black hole and can inhibit star formation within the galactic disk.
While previous reports identified barred spiral galaxies, their analyses were inconclusive due to the less reliable optical redshift methods compared to the spectroscopy used for COSMOS-74706 verification.
In some instances, a galaxy’s light was distorted by a massive object, leading to a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing.
“Essentially, COSMOS-74706 is the most redshifted spectroscopically confirmed lensless barred spiral galaxy,” Ivanov noted.
“We were not surprised to find barred spiral galaxies so early in the universe’s timeline.”
“In fact, some simulations suggest the bar formed at redshift 5, or roughly 12.5 billion years ago.”
“However, I believe we shouldn’t expect to find many of these galaxies just yet.”
This discovery helps refine the timeline for bar formation, making it a significant finding.
What is the ekpyrotic universe theory? Ekpyrotic Cosmology serves as an alternative to the conventional Lambda-CDM or λCDM model.
The λCDM model relies on a significant flatness of the universe, necessitating a phase of rapid “inflation” to smooth out initial density and temperature fluctuations.
Despite the lack of direct evidence or identifiable causes for this inflation, it provides a solid explanation for many complex aspects of our observable universe, aligning well with current data.
In contrast, ekpyrotic theory posits no beginning of time, substituting the big bang with a “bounce” between two “branes” within a 3D world of 5-dimensional space-time.
The structure of the contemporary universe is established before this bounce, thereby negating the need for inflation.
Additionally, this theory circumvents the problematic “singularities” present in traditional Big Bang cosmology. However, it has its drawbacks, such as the emergence of negative energy particles that could potentially annihilate the universe.
There are also notable divergences in the predictions of ekpyrotic and λCDM theories, including the gravitational wave background’s shape (the random ripples in potential space-time caused by Big Bang forces) and the existence of so-called “ghost particles.”
Nevertheless, there is currently no observational evidence backing Ecpyrus theory in comparison to λCDM cosmology.
Thus, while the theory is a compelling alternative, the standard Big Bang model remains the most widely accepted framework among physicists.
This article addresses the question: “What is the Ekpyrotic Universe Theory?”
Please email us with your questionsat Question@sciencefocus.com or message us onFacebook,Twitter, orInstagram(please include your name and location).
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The immense void of space implies that only one star can occupy a region at a time.
This phenomenon occurs because the mass of these stars is 80 billion times lighter than Earth, with three colossal entities devouring stars ten times larger than our Sun.
A recent study from the University of Hawaii reveals that astronomers, while analyzing data from NASA and the European Space Agency, have identified three ultra-massive black holes. A gigantic one consumes stars far exceeding the sizes of those that orbit the center of our solar system.
The explosions reported by these researchers happened when the black holes tore apart and engulfed the remnants of these stars, yielding the largest events since the Big Bang that shaped our universe.
“What excites me about this research is that we are extending the boundaries of our understanding of the most energetic environments in the universe,” stated Anna Payne, a staff scientist at the Institute of Space Telescope Science and co-author, in a NASA article.
Black holes are cosmic entities that remain unseen by the naked eye, possessing a gravitational force so intense it can capture everything, including light itself. Supermassive black holes, the largest varieties, reside at the centers of galaxies, gradually consuming planets and other materials.
When a star falls under the influence of a supermassive black hole, new research published this week suggests it could end in a dramatic explosion categorized as an “extreme nuclear transient.”Journals advance in science
“These occurrences are unique as they provide the only means for us to illuminate a massive black hole that would typically remain dormant,” noted University of Hawaii graduate student Jason Hinkle in a related article from NASA.NASA article.
Hinkle serves as the lead author of a new study that documents two such events for the first time in the last decade.
Two of the three supermassive black holes were observed by ESA missions in 2016 and 2018, marking the first time they were documented. The third, cataloged as ZTF20Abrbeie, was discovered by the Caltech Observatory in California in 2020 and officially recorded in 2023.
The explosion’s magnitude rivals only that of the Big Bang, which initiated the universe.
Differing from typical stellar explosions, the variations in X-rays, optical, and ultraviolet emissions in these events indicated a “star-consuming black hole.”
NASA explains that black holes actually become brighter during these cosmic occurrences, with their luminosity lasting several months.
This brightness offers scientists a new methodology to uncover additional black holes in the far reaches of the early universe. As astronomers peer into the cosmos, the farther they look, the more ancient light they detect. For instance, light from the Sun takes eight minutes to reach Earth.
“You can use these three objects as a template for what to search for in the future,” Payne remarked.
It is explained in the paper published today journal Natural Astronomy the discovery means that habitable deplanets may have begun to form much earlier, before they were formed billions of years ago.
This artist's impression shows the evolution of the universe, beginning with the Big Bang on the left. After that, you will see the microwave background of the universe. The formation of the first stars ends the dark ages of the universe, followed by the formation of galaxies. Image credit: M. Weiss/Harvard – Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
“We had no oxygen before the first star exploded, so there was no water in space,” said Daniel Warren, an astronomer at the University of Portsmouth.
“Only a very simple nucleus survived the Big Bang: hydrogen, helium, lithium, trace amounts of barium and boron.”
According to Dr. Whalen and his colleagues, water molecules began to form shortly after the first supernova explosion known as the Population III Supernova.
These cosmic events that occurred on first generation stars were essential to creating the heavy elements (such as oxygen) needed for water to exist.
“The oxygen forged in the hearts of these supernovas combines with hydrogen to form water, paving the way for the creation of the essential elements needed for life,” Dr. Whalen said.
In their study, researchers looked at two types of supernovae. This produces corecrolaps supernovae, which produces a modest amount of heavy elements, and more energetic POP III supernovae.
They discovered that both types of supernovae form dense masses of rich gas in water.
The overall amount of water produced by these early supernovae was modest, but was highly concentrated in a gas-dense area called the cloud core, which is thought to be the birthplace of stars and planets.
These early, water-rich regions may have sown planetary formations at the dawn of space long before the first galaxy took shape.
“A significant discovery is that the primitive supernova formed water in the universe ahead of the first galaxy,” Dr. Hualen said.
“So water was already an important component of the first galaxy.”
“This means that the conditions necessary for the formation of life were in place faster than we could have imagined, meaning it was an important step in our early understanding of the universe.”
“The total water mass was modest, but it was very concentrated on the only structures that could form stars and planets.”
“And that suggests that before the first galaxy, a water-rich planetary disc could form at the dawn of space.”
The first water molecules could have formed just 100 million to 200 million years after the Big Bang – even the first galaxy kicked off the processes that led to life on Earth.
Shortly after the Big Bang, most of the problems in the universe were hydrogen and helium, with only traces of other lighter elements, such as lithium. Heavy elements like oxygen are not yet present, and water is impossible to form.
These early elements were combined into the first star and produced heavier elements through oxygen-containing fusion. When these stars reach the end of their lives, they explode as supernovae, releasing these heavier elements, allowing oxygen to mix and mix with existing hydrogen to combine H.2O – Water.
Previous research It shows that even the relatively small amount of oxygen produced by the earliest stars could create water molecules, but they say up until now they have not simulated exactly what happens when a protostar becomes a supernova, and how the elements it released blended with the cosmic environment in which the stars were formed. Daniel Warren At the University of Portsmouth, UK. “To do anything less, you just don't know what's going on,” he says.
To investigate this, Whalen and his team used computer models to simulate the birth and death of the first star in a realistic context. These early stars are thought to range from 13 times the massive range of the Sun to 200 times the size of the Sun, so researchers modeled both extremes.
As you can imagine, the larger stars spit out more oxygen and produced more water in the form of steam clouds around the Jupiter mass, while the smaller stars produced Earth's mass, says Whaleen.
Depending on the mass of the star, researchers discovered that water took between 3 million and 90 million years after the supernova explosion. In other words, the first water molecules were formed 100-200 million years after the Big Bang.
Importantly, however, the team discovered that this water was not simply spreading throughout the universe. Instead, gravity caused it, and the other heavy elements produced by the first star were clumped together. That meant these chunks were breeding grounds for the second generation stars, and perhaps the first planet. “It was a huge result,” Whalen says.
“Even before the galaxy took place, this idea of water forming essentially overturning decades of thought about the first emergence of life in the universe,” says Whalen. Team Members Muhammadratif At UAE University, researchers now say they will simulate whether water vapor can survive the destruction of the formation of the first galaxy and harsh radiation.
“We know that the chemistry of life we know requires liquid water and can only be obtained in objects with surfaces in the universe or atmospheric.” avi loeb At Harvard University. It would have been a lot of time before this initial vapor condense into liquid water, but he says it could have helped them to find second-generation stars and their planets using instruments like the James Webbspace Telescope to help them understand this process more, and perhaps these planets could have been habitable millions of years after the Big Bang.
The existence of something rather than nothing is a profound question that lies at the intersection of science and philosophy. It pushes us to investigate the origins of our existence.
Evolutionary theory traces all life on Earth back to a common ancestor referred to as the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA). The quest to find LUCA captivates scientists studying life’s origins, prompting a deeper exploration into the origins of Earth and the universe.
Cosmologically, the birth of stars, formation of planets, and expansion of the universe reveal a magnificent interplay. This cosmic dance involves the expansion rate of the universe, gravitational collapse of dark matter, and the capture of hydrogen essential for star formation. Without this intricate cosmic ballet, life as we know it would not exist.
The story of our universe begins with a fundamental question: What sparked the universe’s expanding space-time? The prevailing model, known as big bang cosmology, posits that all matter in the universe originated from a colossal explosion at a specific point in the distant past.
Einstein’s general relativity theory supports the concept of an expanding universe, describing space-time as a flexible medium capable of bending, expanding, and collapsing. Rewinding the universe would reveal a moment called the Big Bang Singularity, where the universe condensed into a minuscule point of immense energy and curvature.
Stephen Hawking and his colleagues delved into understanding this singularity, grappling with the notion of time and existence before the Big Bang. Alternative explanations beyond the singularity have been explored, including concepts like the big bounce, quantum gravity, and cyclical inflation.
Cosmologists are actively researching observational predictions to differentiate between these models and unravel the mysteries of our cosmic origins. The rapid formation of supermassive black holes challenges the current cosmological model, hinting at the need for new frameworks to explain cosmic anomalies.
As we continue this intellectual journey, uncovering the enigmatic tapestry of the universe, we inch closer to unravelling the secrets of our existence and shedding light on the age-old question of why there is something rather than nothing.
'I I remember visiting Ghostface Killah. [of the Wu-Tang Clan] “He was mad at us!” recalls Darryl Anselmo, a former EA employee and art director on 2004's groundbreaking hip-hop fusion fighting game Def Jam: Fight for NY. “Ghost Face was holding four pounds of solid gold. eagle bracelet And he claimed that his character's signature move would be for the bird to come to life and peck the other rappers out of their eyes. But the limitations of the PlayStation 2's technology and its violence restrictions meant that it couldn't happen. It wasn't possible.”
“When Ghost Face first asked about the eagle, Lauren… [Wirtzer Seawood, another one of the game’s producers] He told me to just nod and smile, and when I met him again at the studio for the sequel, I apologized. [for misleading him] He quickly moved on to recording extended insults for his character for the new game, one of which I remember: “Go home and cry to your mother. And tell her you're hungry!”
Whether or not Ghostface Killah transforms into a giant killer eagle, the resulting game, Def Jam: Fight for NY, celebrates its 20th anniversary this month and remains one of the fighting game genre's most vibrant spins. It's the rare '00s game that's still dominating social media conversation despite never being remade or re-released. The 67 characters include rap legends like Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes, Method Man, Ice-T, Scarface, Ludacris, Flavor Flav, Slick Rick, Warren G, and Mobb Deep, and it's an improvement over the slower-paced gameplay of its predecessor, Def Jam: Vendetta, in every respect.
Vendetta was essentially publisher EA's best take on an engine made for a defunct WCW wrestling game that was mired in development hell and causing executives to lose their heads. At one stage, in their desperation, they even suggested that it could be salvaged and remade into an intergalactic wrestling game full of alien characters. But because Holmes and Anselmo had helmed the 2001 success NBA Street (which added a faster, cartoony, hip-hop aesthetic to basketball multiplayer and far outsold that year's bigger-budget (and much more boring) NBA Live 2002), they were deemed the perfect duo to turn what began as a vague boardroom idea (what if rappers wrestled each other?) into a fleshed-out, retail game.
“It was a controversial concept”…Def Jam battles in NYC. Photo: EA
This meant traveling back and forth to Japan to work with development company AKI Corporation, while also touring the US to meet with rappers signed or affiliated with legendary label Def Jam, and ultimately winning their trust. They shaped the character's mannerisms, from moves to taunts. “It's been a dream life, to be honest,” Holmes adds. “I grew up obsessed with hip-hop. As a teenager, I worked in a music store and sold a bass guitar to Flavor Flav when Public Enemy played in Vancouver. Flavor actually remembered me! It was an amazing time. Who would have thought I'd end up recording with my idols and going to Snoop Dogg's family home?”
But he acknowledges that the core concept behind Def Jam: Vendetta and its sequel, Def Jam: Fight for NY, wasn't easily embraced: “Execs had a hard time understanding the concept of a fighting game about rappers. It was a controversial concept,” says the producer, who went on to work on Halo 4 at Microsoft and 343 Industries.
“Once I explained to them that to be the best lyricist in hip-hop, it's all about arguing, dissing, and competing for the throne, they finally got it,” Anselmo reveals. “Hip-hop is full of vibrant, competitive personalities, so the character roster could have a Street Fighter II or Tekken 3 vibe.”
Def Jam: Fight for NY's concept of rappers punching each other was a huge success, and critics loved it, too, with a score of 83 on Metacritic. “We rushed to make Vendetta, but it still sold well,” says Holmes. “That success gave us the opportunity to expand on the gameplay with Fight for NY and take our time to get it right.” AKI Corporation took the ever-changing, momentum-based combat from the legendary WWF: No Mercy game, released on Nintendo 64 in 2000, and sped everything up with hyper-active Blazin' Moves (my personal favorite is Busta's backbreaker, which is more destructive than Batman's spine-crushing Bane).
The art design is somewhere between The Wire and a comic book, with an ambitious range of dynamic fighting styles (kickboxing, street fighting, martial arts, wrestling, submission). There's a storyline, with Snoop Dogg playing the cunning vampire villain The Crow, who'll hit you with a cane and cleverly taunt you with, “Do you have dental insurance?” You can wear Roc-A-Wear or Ecko tracksuits, getting increasingly better dressed as you rise through the ranks of your boss D-Mob's underground fighting syndicate, slowly earning you respect. It's as if Fight Club had been directed by glossy rap music vid…
Rappers Joe Budden vs. Sticky Fingaz compete in Def Jam's New York Battle. Photo: EA
The key mission was to choose either 128-bit's Lil' Kim or Carmen Electra as his new girlfriend, and the next day Method Man would call and ask if they'd slept together. The latter was one part of the game that Anselmo now regrets: “Lil' Kim could beat any of the male MCs, but… [reduced to that]”In 2004,” he admits, “all of the rap music videos were about objectifying women, which in retrospect is a real shame. The reality is that there was a push to make the game more sex appealing and more culturally relevant.”
As I recalled after recently replaying my dusty GameCube copy, Fight for NY is still exhilaratingly challenging. The boss fight featuring Fat Joe's crack Zangief-esque character had me hurling my WaveBird controller against the wall as a teenager. You can't beat your opponent unless you take the time to figure out how to counter their attacks, and while this process can be brutal at times, it makes it all that much more satisfying when you finally triumph.
“This game is designed in such a way that you have to sweat and really learn something new to win!” Anselmo says with a smile. “AKI's Hiro Abe (programmer) and Hiroya Tamura (artist) were geniuses. To get good at Def Jam: Fight for NY, you had to master the gameplay and get used to losing. In modern games, fighting games are just too easy. I think that's why so many people still play our game over and over.”
“Fighting games are too easy in today's gaming world”…Def Jam Fight for NY. Photo: EA
And there are still a lot of people playing Fight for NY. Not a week goes by without someone playing. Nostalgic post A gameplay video that went viral on TikTok has gone viral to the point where people can't believe it even exists. Even rappers (Including Ice TThe actor who played the character in the game(?) is still responding to tweets from fans begging for an updated version.
A$AP Rocky has labelled modern rap the “new wrestling” due to the commercialisation of petty infighting and mainstream MCs treating rap personas like WWE bad-mouthing tough guys. Holmes agrees with my theory that Def Jam: Fight for NY, with its constant depictions of MCs embroiled in diss tracks and gang politics, now feels like a documentary, especially considering how much more public conflict there has become in rap. “Rap is becoming more and more dramatic,” he agrees. “You see a lot of social media videos of rappers fighting each other, and it's interesting that the violence of the game doesn't seem so ridiculous today.”
Some will argue that a game that trivializes the conflict in hip-hop is wrong and deserves more criticism, especially with so many rappers losing their lives to violence every year. Anselmo counters: “I get that, and I don't think we could make the game right now because of drill, the environment is too tough. But Def Jam: Fight for NY was just meant to be a fantasy, escapist experience. It was like a gangsta rap version of The Warriors. It was just a little fun. We trusted that the audience would know that in real life, throwing someone through a window is not cool. We were really trying to res…tement is too tough. But Def Jam: Fight for NY was just meant to be a fantasy, escapist experience. It was like a gangsta rap version of The Warriors. It was just a little fun. We trusted that the audience would know that in real life, throwing someone through a window is not cool. We were really trying to respect the culture of hip-hop.”
The original Xbox, PlayStation 2, and GameCube discs of Def Jam: Fight for NY are highly sought-after and command high prices on the second-hand market. But there hasn't been a Def Jam game released since 2007's disappointing Def Jam: Icon, and there hasn't been a remaster of Fight for NY. Why?
The sequel may be one of the most expensive games ever made…Def Jam Fight for NY. Photo: EA
Lauren Wurtzer Seawood, former vice president of marketing for the Def Jam label, played a pivotal role in the development of the first two games, serving as the liaison introducing the timid development team to the feisty MCs, and working hard to sort out complex licensing agreements ranging from image rights to music to in-game brand partnerships.
She says this complicated business mechanic is a big reason why it's highly unlikely the franchise will ever be revived. Def Jam: Fight for NY cost about $15 million to make, but with both hip-hop and video games now multi-billion dollar businesses worldwide, licensing fees would be astronomical. “If this game was re-released today, many
Use of Data ESA's Gaia mission Astronomers have discovered a number of metal-poor stars that are more than 13 billion years old and in orbits similar to our sun.
Rotational motion of a young (blue) and an older (red) star similar to the Sun (orange). Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / R. Hurt / SSC / Caltech.
“The Milky Way has a large halo, a central bulge and bar, and thick and thin disks,” said Dr Samir Nepal of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam and his colleagues.
“Most of the stars are found in a thin disk of the so-called Milky Way galaxy, which revolves regularly around the galactic center.”
“Middle-aged stars like our Sun, which is 4.6 billion years old, belong to a thin disk that is generally thought to have begun to form between 8 and 10 billion years ago.”
Astronomers used the new Gaia data set to study stars within about 3,200 light-years of the Sun.
They found a surprisingly large number of very old stars in the thin disk orbit, most of which are over 10 billion years old, with some being over 13 billion years old.
These ancient stars show a wide range of metal compositions: some are very metal-poor (as expected), while others have twice the metal content of the much younger Sun, indicating that rapid metal enrichment occurred early in the evolution of the Milky Way.
“These ancient stars in the disk suggest that the formation of the Milky Way's thin disk began much earlier than previously thought, around 4 to 5 billion years ago,” Dr Nepal said.
“This study also reveals that the Galaxy underwent intense star formation early on, leading to rapid metal enrichment in its inner regions and the formation of a disk.”
“This discovery brings the Milky Way's disk formation timeline into line with that of high-redshift galaxies observed with the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA).”
“This shows that cold disks can form and stabilize very early in the history of the universe, providing new insights into the evolution of galaxies.”
“Our study suggests that the Milky Way's thin disk may have formed much earlier than previously thought and that its formation is closely linked to an early chemical enrichment in the innermost regions of the galaxy,” said Dr Cristina Chiappini, astronomer at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam.
“The combination of data from different sources and the application of advanced machine learning techniques has allowed us to increase the number of stars with high-quality stellar parameters, which is an important step leading our team to these new insights.”
Samir Nepal others2024. Discovery of local counterparts of disk galaxies at z > 4: The oldest thin disk in the Milky Way using Gaia-RVS. A&Ain press; arXiv: 2402.00561
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