NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has come up with the goods again. Images released by the space agency show some of the oldest barred galaxies ever discovered. The galaxies feature so-called stellar bars – elongated bands of stars that stretch from the galaxies’ centres into their outer discs, like those seen in the Milky Way. Two of the six date back to a time when the Universe was just 3.4 billion years old, one-quarter of its current age.
One of the galaxies, EGS-23205, was previously imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope but the resolution was not high enough for astronomers to make out its spiral shape and prominent stellar bar. These fine details are clearly visible in the higher resolution images produced by the JWST. The structure of a second galaxy, EGS-24268, is also distinguishable.