Four Galaxies Observed in the Early Universe

The James Webb Space Telescope, which has made countless discoveries possible even in the short time since the summer of 2022, hosted a new one today. The team, which includes scientists from many nationalities, discovered four of the galaxies closest to the Big Bang.

It was shared that the discovered galaxies are 300 to 500 million years away from the Big Bang. So these galaxies were formed when our universe, which is about 13.8 billion years old, was only 2% of its life.

The closest galaxy to the Big Bang is 320 million years away:

Of the four galaxies, the one closest to the Big Bang is named JADES-GS-z13-0. The galaxy is estimated to have formed 320 million years after the beginning of the universe. Another galaxy, JADES-GS-z10-0, is said to have formed 450 million years later. This galaxy was previously observed by the Hubble Space Telescope.

The four galaxies have something in common and surprising:

It was announced that the mass of all four galaxies is almost equal to the mass of 100 million Suns. This value puts galaxies in the “very low mass” category. For comparison, our Milky Way Galaxy has the mass of 1.5 trillion Suns.

Galaxies, on the other hand, have a high rate of star formation despite being in the early universe. In fact, stars are forming at roughly the same rate as stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. This is considered quite surprising for conditions in the early universe.

Galaxies also support a theory about the universe. The accepted standard model theory of the universe suggests that the closer you are to the Big Bang, the less metal is present. Supporting the theory, all four newly observed galaxies are extremely poor in metal density.

None of the discovered galaxies is the closest galaxy to the Big Bang. The James Webb Space Telescope has also enabled us to explore a galaxy just 230 million years away in recent months.