Webb and Hubble reveal history of relic of the Milky Way galaxy’s formation
Webb and Hubble reveal history of relic of the Milky Way galaxy’s formation
New research shows that Terzan 5 contains four separate generations of stars, confirming it as the prototype of a “bulge fossil fragment”
Researchers have confirmed a new class of objects within our Milky Way galaxy: survivors called “bulge fossil fragments.” Terzan 5 is the prototype of these remnants of our galaxy's early formation. Billions of years ago, similar primordial clumps spread out and merged to form the Milky Way’s bulge, yet Terzan 5 remained intact until the present day. A new study that combined recent observations from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope and data taken over 12 years from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has definitively shown that Terzan 5 experienced up to four distinct episodes of star formation, confirming that it’s not a true globular cluster. Instead, it is something much odder and rarer.
Researchers using two of humanity’s most powerful observatories — the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescopes — have definitively shown that Terzan 5 is not a globular star cluster as it was once classified, offering new insight into how galaxies like our own form and evolve over time. A globular star cluster typically has only one ancient star population. New data not only confirms the existence of two distinct populations of stars in Terzan 5, but also provides evidence for two more recent rounds of star formation. Although located within the crowded bulge of the Milky Way galaxy, our galaxy’s central, spherical region of older stars, Terzan 5 was massive enough to maintain its separate identity while lighter weight systems spread out and mixed to form the bulge billions of years ago. It’s like a lump in an otherwise well-mixed cake batter.
“Webb’s new near-infrared observations, cross-referenced with Hubble’s archival observations, have given us a much clearer picture of the history of Terzan 5,” said Giorgia Zullo, who led the research and is a PhD student at the University of Bologna in Italy.
These results were presented at a press conference Tuesday at the 248th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, and were published in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Four generations of stars
Discovered in 1968 by astronomer Azop Terzan, Terzan 5 resembles a globular cluster in many ways. However, in 2009 this system was discovered to harbor two distinct populations of stars. In 2016 Hubble provided the first estimate of their ages, showing that one formed roughly 12 billion years ago (as the Milky Way itself was assembling) and the other about 5 billion years ago, just before Earth started forming. This pointed to a more complex history than a typical globular cluster.
Studying Terzan 5 is complicated by its location in a region of our galaxy crowded with stars and heavily obscured by dust. This is where Webb stepped in. Its infrared view allowed the research team to peer through the dust and catalog many more stars, and fainter stars, than previous work. By measuring star colours and brightnesses, astronomers can classify them into populations of different ages and chemistries.
Webb was able to measure these key properties for every star within the field of view in the sky — both stars within Terzan 5 and unrelated foreground stars. To isolate the stars of Terzan 5, the team relied on the power and longevity of Hubble. The 12-year separation of Hubble’s exposures allowed the team to measure very small movements of individual stars, known as proper motions, to determine which stars belong to Terzan 5 and which are part of the Milky Way galaxy’s bulge.
By combining data from both Webb and Hubble, the researchers found strong evidence for two more stellar populations, one that formed 3.8 billion years ago and another only 2.5 billion years ago. They also were able to determine the ages of the previously known stellar populations with unprecedented precision, finding that they formed 12.5 billion and 4.7 billion years ago.
With the previously known two generations of stars, astronomers could not rule out the possibility that Terzan 5 interacted with another object, like a globular cluster or a giant molecular cloud, becoming enriched with new gas and dust that set off a second round of star formation. With four stellar generations, those explanations are ruled out.
Measurements of the stellar composition of Terzan 5 populations made at the W. M. Keck Observatory and European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope also point toward very distinct populations. “Along with the ages of these populations, the cluster preserves a fossil record of progressive enrichment of heavy elements by supernovae,” said co-author R. Michael Rich, a research astronomer at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Terzan 5 formed multiple generations of stars because it was able to retain the necessary raw materials. There is evidence of powerful supernova explosions in Terzan 5 that forged heavier elements that were swept up by subsequent generations of stars. In lighter weight systems, the force of the explosions themselves could have ejected the resulting elements as well as sweeping out leftover gas and dust. The progenitor of Terzan 5 had enough mass to retain those stars’ ejections, allowing new generations of stars to form over billions of years.
‘Bulge fossil fragment’
The results show that Terzan 5 is most likely the remnant of a much more massive stellar system that initially formed 12.5 billion years ago. Terzan 5 is extraordinary because it survived — and never merged or fully “mixed in” with the Milky Way galaxy’s bulge. “For some reason, this peculiar clump of stars formed separately from the bulge and was not destroyed as the bulge itself formed,” said Francesco R. Ferraro, a professor at the University of Bologna and principal investigator of the Webb observations. “Terzan 5 is what we now call a bulge fossil fragment because it resembles the primordial clumps that contributed to the formation of the bulge.”
To date, there’s one other known cosmic object like Terzan 5. Liller 1 was the second to be reclassified from a globular star cluster to a bulge fossil fragment. It also contains multiple generations of stars. There may be more objects like it. Between 40 to 50 additional globular clusters that orbit within the bulge will be examined by Ferraro’s team to determine if their stellar populations are all the same, like globular clusters, or have several generations, like bulge fossil fragments.
Potential parallels for galaxy formation near, far
Ultimately, this research may improve what we know about how the central bulges of galaxies form over hundreds of millions of years. “Based on observations and in-depth simulations, we think that galaxies in the early Universe had huge disks of gas that fragmented into clumps and formed stars. These clumps migrated to the centre of the galaxies, and many merged to form their bulges,” said Barbara Lanzoni, a co-author and associate professor at the University of Bologna. For example, Webb has turned up several examples of “clumpy” galaxies that were actively forming when the Universe was only a few hundred million years old, like the clumps in the Firefly Sparkle galaxy. “Terzan 5 may provide direct evidence that can help explain how bulges formed in galaxies throughout the Universe,” Lanzoni said.
Bulge fossil fragment Terzan 5 (Webb and Hubble image)
Terzan 5 is a stellar system orbiting within the Milky Way galaxy’s bulge, which is an incredibly bright, crowded central region of the galaxy. Not only are stars within the bulge tightly packed together — every bit of this region is laced with thick clouds of gas and dust.
The James Webb and Hubble Space Telescopes joined forces to study Terzan 5. Astronomers already knew that this star cluster was unusual in that it contained two stellar populations of very different ages. New research found strong evidence for two more stellar populations, one that formed 3.8 billion years ago and another only 2.5 billion years ago. The research team also was able to determine the ages of the previously known stellar populations with unprecedented precision, finding that they formed 12.5 billion and 4.7 billion years ago.
This finding proved that Terzan 5 is not a globular star cluster, as originally classified. Instead, Terzan 5 belongs to a new category, known as a bulge fossil fragment — a self-contained, self-enriching stellar system with multiple star populations of different ages and with different iron abundances.
Terzan 5 is 22,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. It contains about 2 million times the Sun's mass packed into a stellar system only a few tens of light-years across, making it one of the most massive and densely populated globular-cluster-like systems in the Milky Way.
This image was created with Hubble data from proposal: 12933 (F. R. Ferraro) and Webb data from proposal: 5502 (F. R. Ferraro).
[Image description: A dramatically crowded starfield that looks like a just-shaken snow globe. The black background of space, which is clearer at the edges, is covered by thousands of tiny white, orange, and blue points of light, which are stars. The stars are most concentrated in the centre, forming a roughly circular orb, and sparser at the edges of the image. Several larger orange stars, particularly those largest near the edges of the frame, have prominent diffraction spikes.]
Credit:
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, G. Zullo (University of Bologna), F. R. Ferraro (University of Bologna). Image Processing: A. Pagan (STScI)
Bulge fossil fragment Terzan 5 (Webb and Hubble image annotated)
This image of bulge fossil fragment Terzan 5 was captured by the James Webb and Hubble space telescopes. Webb’s data are from its NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and Hubble’s from its Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).
The image shows a scale bar, compass arrows, and colour key for reference.
The scale bar is labeled in light-years along the bottom, which is the distance that light travels in one Earth-year. (It takes two years for light to travel a distance equal to the length of the scale bar.) One light-year is equal to about 5.88 trillion miles or 9.46 trillion kilometers.
The north and east compass arrows show the orientation of the image on the sky. Note that the relationship between north and east on the sky (as seen from below) is flipped relative to direction arrows on a map of the ground (as seen from above).
This image shows visible and near-infrared wavelengths of light that have been translated into visible-light colours. The colour key shows which NIRCam and ACS filters were used when collecting the light. The colour of each filter name is the visible-light colour used to represent the infrared light that passes through that filter.
This image was created with Hubble data from proposal: 12933 (F. R. Ferraro) and Webb data from proposal: 5502 (F. R. Ferraro).
[Image description: A dramatically crowded starfield that looks like a just-shaken snow globe. The black background of space is covered by thousands of tiny white, orange, and blue points of light, which are stars. The stars are most concentrated in the centre, forming a roughly circular orb. At the bottom left are compass arrows indicating the orientation of the image on the sky. The east arrow points toward 12 o’clock. The north arrow points toward 3 o’clock. At the bottom right is a scale bar labeled 2 light-years. The length of the scale bar is about one seventh of the total image. Below the image is a colour key showing which Hubble ACS/WFC and Webb NIRCam filters were used to create the image, and which visible-light colour is assigned to each filter. Hubble ACS filters, from left to right: F606W is blue and F814W is teal. Webb NIRCam filters: F115W is orange, F200W is red.]
Credit:
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, G. Zullo (University of Bologna), F. R. Ferraro (University of Bologna). Image Processing: A. Pagan (STScI)
VIDEOS
Pan video: Terzan 5
Terzan 5 is a stellar system orbiting within the Milky Way galaxy’s bulge, which is an incredibly bright, crowded central region of the galaxy. Not only are stars within the bulge tightly packed together — every bit of this region is laced with thick clouds of gas and dust.
Terzan 5 is 22,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. It contains about 2 million times the Sun's mass packed into a stellar system only a few tens of light-years across, making it one of the most massive and densely populated globular-cluster-like systems in the Milky Way.
Credit:
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, G. Zullo (University of Bologna), F. R. Ferraro (University of Bologna). Image Processing: A. Pagan (STScI), N. Bartmann (ESA/Webb)
Music: Stellardrone - Twilight
Fuente: ESA/Hubble/Webb Information Centre
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