Panic! At the Disks: First Rest-frame Optical Observations of Galaxy Structure at $z > 3$ with JWST in the SMACS 0723 Field

Understand

We present early results regarding the morphological and structural properties of galaxies seen with the James Webb Space Telescope at $z > 3$ in the Early Release Observations of SMACS 0723, a galaxy cluster at $z=0.39$.

• We investigate, for the first time, the optical morphologies of a significant number of $z > 3$ galaxies with accurate photometric redshifts in this field to determine the form of galaxy structure in the relatively early universe.
• We use visual morphologies and \textsc{Morfometryka} measures to perform quantitative morphology measurements, both parametric with light profile fitting (S\'ersic indices) and non-parametric (CAS values).
• Using these, we measure the relative fraction of disk, spheroidal, and peculiar galaxies at $3 < z < 8$.