James Webb discovers the oldest galaxy ever observed
Miscellaneous / / April 05, 2023
They formed with the first stars in the universe.
James Webb Space Telescope allowed astrophysicists to discover the four oldest galaxies that are visible as they were just 350 million years after the Big Bang.
Light from these galaxies has been traveling to Earth for more than 13.4 billion years, two new studies confirm. Their results show that these galaxies were born when the universe was less than 350 million years old. This is the time when the very first stars were born.
Of these four galaxies, the most distant from us is JADES-GS-z13-0. According to astrophysicists, it was formed 320 million years after the Big Bang.
“These galaxies are at the true edge of our field of view, a little further than Hubble could see! This is an extremely exciting achievement for the mission.” noted Emma Curtis-Lake, astronomer at the University of Hertfordshire in England.
It is also noted that in comparison with modern galaxies, all four objects have a relatively small mass - about 100 million solar masses. For comparison, the mass of the Milky Way is estimated to be 1.5 trillion times that of the Sun.
This discovery confirms the ability of "James Webb" to perform one of its most important tasks - the study the early universe with the help of light that traveled so long that the expansion of the universe increased its length waves. This stretch is called redshift. It can be used as a measure of distance, determining the distance of galaxies.
And this is only the beginning of truly epoch-making discoveries. Even more distant galaxies may be discovered in the near future. "James Webb" observed objects that are even closer to the Big Bang, but they have not yet received unambiguous confirmation, the scientists noted.
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