James Webb Discovered the Most Distant Galaxy

Just a week after its first images were shown to the world, the James Webb Space Telescope may have found a galaxy that existed 13.5 billion years ago, a scientist who analyzed the data said Wednesday, July 21.

Known as GLASS-z13, the galaxy dates back to 300 million years after the Big Bang, about 100 million years earlier than anything previously identified, Rohan Naidu of the Harvard Center for Astrophysics told Agence France Presse (AFP). "We're potentially looking at the most distant starlight that anyone has ever seen," he said.

The more distant objects are from us, the longer it takes for their light to reach us, and so to gaze back into the distant universe is to see into the deep past.

Though GLASS-z13 existed in the earliest era of the universe, its exact age remains unknown as it could have formed anytime within the first 300 million years.

GLASS-z13 was spotted in so-called "early release" data from the orbiting observatory's main infrared imager, called NIRcam – but the discovery was not revealed in the first image set published by NASA last week.

Mr. Naidu and colleagues – a team totaling 25 astronomers from across the world – have submitted their findings to a scientific journal. For now, the research is posted on a "preprint" server, so it comes with the caveat that it has yet to be peer-reviewed – but it has already set the global astronomy community abuzz.

"Astronomy records are crumbling already, and more are shaky," tweeted NASA's chief scientist Thomas Zurbuchen.

"Yes, I tend to only cheer once science results clear peer review. But, this looks very promising," he added.

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