With a tremendous distance, the light from the galaxy JADES-GS-z13-0 took over 13.4 billion years to reach the James Webb Space Telescope.
The galaxy known as JADES-GS-z13-0 has just been discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), located approximately 33 billion light-years away from us.
James Webb has discovered one of the oldest galaxies ever observed, nearly as old as the universe itself. (Image: NASA).
The scientists managing the JWST have confirmed that this is one of the oldest known galaxies. Specifically, the galaxy formed when the universe was just 350 million years old, which is about 2% of its current age.
Due to the immense distance, astronomers state that light from JADES-GS-z13-0 took over 13.4 billion years to reach James Webb.
Observing this ancient galaxy is precisely the purpose for which the James Webb was built. This project has been delivering results beyond expectations, even though it only began operations at the start of 2022.
“This achievement surpasses anything we could have imagined. With JWST, for the first time, we can find such distant galaxies,” said Brant Robertson, an astrophysicist at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
The data collected not only tells us the distance to various objects but also sheds light on their characteristics. Accordingly, this galaxy likely formed based on the process of ionizing surrounding hydrogen gas.
With measurements conducted by computers, scientists are now able to determine the intrinsic brightness of the galaxy and estimate how many stars it contains. From this, they can distinguish how galaxies have interacted with one another over time.