James Webb telescope discovers most distant galaxy known to date

The galaxy, named JADES-GS-z14-0, existed just 290 million years after the Big Bang and has peculiarities that have consequences for the understanding of the early universe, the US space agency NASA said on Thursday. The light from the newly discovered galaxy took more than 13.5 billion years to reach Earth.

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The Big Bang took place 13.8 billion years ago. JADES-GS-z14-0 is not the type of galaxy that theoretical models and computer simulations had predicted for the early universe, explained the two researchers involved in the discovery, Stefano Carniani and Kevin Hainline. They are “excited by the extraordinary diversity of galaxies that existed in the cosmic dawn.”

A journey into the past

In astronomy, looking into the distance also means a journey into the past. For example, it takes eight minutes for the light from the sun to reach the earth – so people see the sun as it was eight minutes ago. When looking very far into the distance, objects can be seen as they looked billions of years ago. The James Webb telescope also detects infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye.

According to NASA, the galaxy is “exceptionally bright for its distance.” Its mass is estimated to be several hundred million times that of the sun. According to the researchers, the discovery raises the question of “how nature could have created such a bright, massive and large galaxy in less than 300 million years.”

1.5 million kilometers away

The high-tech observatory, built as part of the European Space Agency (ESA) with Austrian participation, was launched into space in December 2021 after decades of preparation. It is now more than one and a half million kilometers from Earth. It is researching the early days of the cosmos.