The first stars and galaxies : new insights from the James Webb Space Telescope

le 29 septembre 2023, 10h45 à 12h45, Nicolas Laporte, salle Jules Verne, OMP, site Belin

Resumé: 

One of the most intriguing topics in modern extragalactic astronomy is the quest to understand when the first generation of stars and galaxies bathed the Universe in light. This quest for Cosmic Dawn began in the 1950s and has recently entered a new phase with the successful launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Among the initial exciting findings obtained by the Webb within its first year of observations is the detection of accreting black holes (AGN) less than 500 million years after the Big Bang, a discovery that raises intriguing questions. Furthermore, the identification of extremely massive galaxies in the early stages of the Universe’s history appears to challenge the standard cosmological model. In this seminar, I will commence by providing an overview of the expectations from simulations and observations prior to the arrival of the JWST. Subsequently, I will review the latest observational discoveries related to the quest for Cosmic Dawn and the study of the first generation of stars and galaxies.