Just a week ago, the “oldest galaxy” ever seen was found by the James Webb Space Telescope. The galaxy called GLASS-z13 has gone down in history as the galaxy farthest from us until now. But James Webb, the most powerful telescope ever sent into space, is already pushing the limits once again and revealing new galaxies.
James Webb Space Telescope breaks record after record
In a series of new papers published Monday, astronomers have revealed galaxies that may be even further away than GL-z13. Just a week after, the discovery of even more distant galaxies is a testament to the power of the revolutionary James Webb Space Telescope.
As soon as the data from the James Webb Telescope got into the hands of scientists, new studies for distant galaxies began. Thanks to infrared light technology, James Webb can observe distant galaxies much better than the Hubble Telescope. Hubble, on the other hand, uses the visible spectra to make observations.
Visible light from the oldest galaxies in the universe changed form over time. Since the universe has expanded since the big bang, the wavelengths of light get longer. The light that we can see with our eyes shifts towards the red wavelength. James Webb stands out even more in this area, as it has been specially designed to capture infrared rays.
Astronomers denote the red turning of the lights with z. Higher z values essentially represent a look back in time. For example, when the z value is 1, it corresponds to approximately 7.7 billion years ago, while when the z value is 10, we are looking at about 13.2 billion years ago.
Articles uploaded to arXiv contain new galaxies, of which at least three have z-values greater than 16. This value corresponds to approximately 13.6 billion years ago. A galaxy with a Z value of 16.7 may be the farthest galaxy ever. This marks a new record set by the James Webb Telescope.
Research about the new galaxy, which marks about 250 million years after the Big Bang, is currently ongoing. In the light of new discoveries, GL-z13 seems to sit on the throne of being the most distant galaxy for only 1 week. Let’s see what other galaxies will the James Webb Space Telescope show us in the future?
So what do you think about James Webb and his record? You can share your views with us in the comments section.
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