The James Web Telescope (JWST) immortalized the Mom-Z14 galaxythe farthest ever observed before, which gives us back a portion of the universe after “only” 280 million years from the Big Bang. The observation and analyzes were guided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, USA).
The researchers used the JWST to examine the Mom-Z14 galaxy, identified for the first time in 2023, confirming that it is really the most distant galaxy so far. And when it comes to distances in the universe of talks also of time, because what we can do on earth is to analyze the light emitted by the celestial bodies that comes to us.
The light we observe has now been issued only 280 million years after the Big Bangexceeding the previous record of about 10 million years
explains Rohan Naiduwho collaborated in research
This record, among other things, is in turn very recent: the Galaxy Jades-Gs-Z14-0 It was in fact identified just a year ago, in 2024.
Since its launch in 2021, the JWST has detected galaxies increasingly distant over time: it can in fact make an approximate estimate of the distance traveled by the light from them to us, acquiring one rapid instantaneous of the galaxythrough a process called photometry. Then, to confirm the exact distance of a galaxy, the researchers use the spectroscopy To analyze all the components of the light emitted.
In this case the brightness of Mom-Z14 indicates that its mass is similar to that of Great cloud of Magellanoa nana satellite galaxy of the Milky Way that has a mass equal to a tenth of our galaxy. The JWST has also been able to identify nitrogen, carbon, oxygen and other elements in the galaxy, suggesting theexistence of multiple generations of stars.
It really is exciting – Comment in Newscientist Charlotte Mason of the University of Copenhagen, not involved in the study – confirms that these very bright galaxies really exist in the primordial universe
The continuous discovery of luminous galaxies in such an early period of the cosmos also indicates aabundance of galaxies after the big bang at least 100 times greater Compared to what was expected before the jwst launch.
There must be some kind of physics that escapes us in the way galaxies are formed
supports Mason
Scientists will continue to investigate this direction.
The research is available for this link.
Sources: Mit / Newscientist
