The James Webb Space Telescope has just set an incredible record by successfully “seeing through” to a world 13.4 billion years ago, bringing back images of a haunting red object.
By analyzing the ultra-clear data from James Webb, scientists from the NOIRLab at the National Science Foundation have identified a bright red object that resembles a devilish eye staring at Earth from deep space. This is indeed a very ancient galaxy.
Graphic representation of ancient Maisie – (Photo: SCI-NEWS).
It is the unusual red color that revealed its age. The red hue of ancient objects is produced by the “redshift” phenomenon, caused by the expansion of the universe pushing cosmic objects “away” from the observer, leading to a shift in the spectral lines of visible light toward the red spectrum.
The darker the red, the faster the object is “running away,” indicating that it belongs to a time very close to the Big Bang.
Actual image of Maisie – (Photo: NASA/ESA/CSA)
Calculations show that the aforementioned ultra-red galaxy was observed when the universe was only 390 million years old. The universe is now approximately 13.8 billion years old. The galaxy has been named “Maisie,” after the daughter of one of the lead authors, Dr. Steven Finkelstein from the University of Texas at Austin.
Maisie Finkelstein also discovered the mysterious galaxy last year, so her name was given to the object as a way to honor her.
“Maisie is one of the leading distant galaxies identified by James Webb, and within that group, it is the first galaxy to be truly confirmed through spectroscopy,” Dr. Finkelstein stated.
This discovery also helps further prove a concept that astronomers have only recently explored: that the early universe was indeed more crowded and rich than previously thought, with large galaxies appearing very early on.
It is also a literal time portal for humanity to look back into the ancient world.
The galaxy Maisie is located 13.4 billion light-years away from us, meaning that the light from it has taken 13.4 billion years to reach us. Thus, we are indeed looking back into the past, 13.4 billion years ago, when the universe was just 390 million years old, and this galaxy was still very young.
If Maisie still exists in real time, this ancient world is now much farther from Earth than 13.4 billion light-years—potentially up to tens of billions of light-years—due to the universe’s intense expansion over that immense time span.
