Galactic disks are flat, rotating structures filled with stars, gas, and dust that orbit the central core. The Solar System orbits within the Milky Way’s disk and Swinburne University of Technology is the only Australian research institution behind this global investigation, published in Nature Astronomy, of new James Webb Space Telescope and other telescope observations.
Using the data from two onboard instruments, NIRCam and NIRSpec, Dr Nanayakkara and the team identified galaxies within this over-dense structure and analysed their redshifts, morphology, and kinematics, all of which are needed for the identification of galaxy disks.
Further kinematics analysis based on the NIRSpec data confirmed that the galaxy contains a disk rotating at around 300 km/s. It is larger than any other kinematically confirmed disks found at similar early epochs, and yet is comparable to the size of today’s most massive disks.
Previous studies revealed that the quasar is embedded in a large-scale structure called a proto galaxy cluster, which has a high concentration of galaxies, gas, and black holes, indicating an exceptionally over-dense environment.
