2012/10/26 by R. Gobat, Raphaël Gobat, V. Strazzullo +15 · 4 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Sketch #Sky #Space Technology and Applications #Staring #astro-ph.CO
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/2041-8205/759/2/l44
6 pages, 4 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters
arxiv created 2012/10/26 · openalex publication_date 2012/10/26 · arxiv updated 2015/06/11 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We present the discovery of a massive, quiescent galaxy at z = 2.99. We have obtained an Hubble Space Telescope WFC3 spectrum of this object and measured its redshift from the detection of a deep 4000 Å break consistent with an old population and a high metallicity. By stellar population modeling of both its grism spectrum and broadband photometry, we derive an age of ∼0.7 Gyr, implying a formation redshift of z > 4, and a mass >10 11 M ☉ . Although this passive galaxy is the most distant confirmed so far, we find that it is slightly less compact than other z > 2 early types of similar mass, being overall more analogous to those z ∼ 1.6 field early-type galaxies. The discovery of this object shows that early-type galaxies are detectable to at least z = 3 and suggests that the diversity of structural properties found in z = 1.4–2 ellipticals to earlier epochs could have its origin in a variety of formation histories among their progenitors.