Galaxy MoM-z14 could offer clues to what the universe looked like in its early days
By Jackie Flynn Mogensen edited by Claire Cameron
The most distant galaxy ever detected, MoM-z14.
NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/Rohan Naidu/MIT (picture); Joseph DePasquale/STScI (image processing)
Join our community of science lovers!
In a galaxy far, far away lie clues to the cosmic dawn, the first hundreds of millions of years in the history of our 13.8 billion-year-old universe. Wednesday, astronomers announced that a bright galaxy called MoM-z14 which was found using NASA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is the most distant ever detected, existing only 280 million years after the big bang.
“With Webb, we are able to see further than humans have ever done before, and it’s nothing like we predicted, which is both challenging and exciting,” said Rohan Naidu, an astronomer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and lead author of a study. pre-printed paper detailing the discovery of MoM-z14 which will soon be published in the journal overlay Open Journal of Astrophysics, in a statement in the NASA announcement.
The galaxy, whose light took more than 13 billion years to reach our telescopes, is brighter, denser and more chemically rich than astronomers expectedaccording to NASA.
On supporting science journalism
If you enjoy this article, please consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribe. By purchasing a subscription, you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
To locate galaxies like MoM-z14, astronomers use redshift. Essentially, it is the measurement of the extent of light coming from an object as that object moves away from our perspective as the universe expands. The higher the redshift, the farther away the object is. In the case of MoM-z14, it has a redshift of 14.4—a recording, Scientific American » columnist Phil Plait noted late last year.
But records are made to be broken. And NASA said it fully expects this new JWST achievement to be surpassed in the not-too-distant future as its observations improve.
Either way, MoM-z14 could offer new clues about the early universe, including why it and other early galaxies are so bright.
“This is an incredibly exciting time, with Webb revealing the early universe like never before,” Yijia Li, a graduate student at Pennsylvania State University who also contributed to the research, said in the same statement, “and showing us how much more there is to discover.”
It’s time to defend science
If you enjoyed this article, I would like to ask for your support. Scientific American has been defending science and industry for 180 years, and we are currently experiencing perhaps the most critical moment in these two centuries of history.
I was a Scientific American subscriber since the age of 12, and it helped shape the way I see the world. SciAm always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of respect for our vast and magnificent universe. I hope this is the case for you too.
If you subscribe to Scientific Americanyou help ensure our coverage centers on meaningful research and discoveries; that we have the resources to account for decisions that threaten laboratories across the United States; and that we support budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.
In exchange, you receive essential information, captivating podcastsbrilliant infographics, newsletters not to be missedunmissable videos, stimulating gamesand the best writings and reports from the scientific world. You can even give someone a subscription.
There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you will support us in this mission.