As time has passed and technology has advanced, new discoveries have arrived in space, and this has been reflected in important findings in the form of new stars, and even materials that were previously unknown to anyone due to the limited exploration outside the atmosphere. And now, a new milestone has been reported that is worth mentioning, because let us remember that there is much to discover outside, and we are not referring only to our solar system.
Astronomers have discovered the oldest galaxy ever observed, called JADES-GS-z14-0, which provides valuable information for current models of galaxy formation. It shows what the universe was like 290 million years after the big Bangoffering the opportunity to study the Cosmic Dawn, the period between 100 and 1,000 million years after this event, when the first galaxies were formed and the structures of the universe began to take shape.
The discovery was made in January 2024 using the Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) of the space telescope James WebbThis instrument, which breaks down light into a spectrum to analyze the physical properties of objects, allowed astronomers to observe JADES-GS-z14-0 for almost 10 hours, confirming that this galaxy is even older than UHZ1, the previous most distant known galaxy, which formed 470 million years after the Big Bang.
The galaxy has a diameter of more than 1,600 light-years, indicating that its light comes from young stars rather than nearby emissions, such as from a growing supermassive black hole. This finding, according to researchers Stefano Carniani of the Scuola Normale Superiore in Italy and Kevin Hainline of the University of Arizona, is crucial to understanding how the universe formed after the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago.
Via: Nature
Author’s note: It is always a good thing that new discoveries are made, and it is important to know if there will ever be new habitable galaxies. It will take time for this to become a reality, but it will be interesting for the new generations to achieve it.
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