Named GLASS-z13, this particular galaxy is estimated to have existed only 300 million years after the Big Bang – the cosmic event that was the “starting point” of the universe
Just a week after the release of the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful ever designed, astronomers say it may have already discovered the most distant galaxy ever observed, which existed 13.5 billions of years!
Named GLASS-z13, this particular galaxy is estimated to have existed only 300 million years after the Big Bang – the cosmic event that was the “starting point” of the universe. It is said to be 100 million years earlier than the previous record, Rohan Naidu of the Harvard Center for Astrophysics told AFP.
Naidu is the lead author of a study analyzing data from early observations by the James Webb Space Telescope. The data is published online for all astronomers in the world.
One of the main missions of the state-of-the-art space telescope is to observe the first galaxies that formed after the Big Bang, which dates back to 13.8 billion years ago.
In astronomy, observing distant objects is like traveling back in time. Light from the Sun, for example, takes eight minutes to reach Earth. By observing objects as far away as possible, we can perceive what they were like billions of years ago.
In this particular case, the light from the galaxy GLASS-z13 is estimated to have been emitted 13.5 billion years ago.
Although this study has not yet been peer-reviewed, it was published as a “preview” in order to be readily accessible to the expert community. It has been submitted for publication in a scientific journal, according to Naidu.
Many astronomers are already commenting with enthusiasm on social media about this particular discovery. “Records in astronomy are already faltering,” tweeted Thomas Zurbuchen, a NASA science associate, who called the finding “very promising.”
A second scientific team also came to the same conclusion as Rohan Naidu, which makes him “more confident” in his assessment.
The James Webb Space Telescope launched about six months ago. It cost nearly $10 billion and has enough fuel for about 20 years. Therefore, astronomers aspire to learn many of the secrets of the universe in the coming years.
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