Thanks to the observations of the most powerful space telescope, namely James Webb, astronomers have discovered the oldest galaxy in the Universe. The system of stars is 13.5 billion years old, meaning almost the same age as the Universe itself.
Most astronomers agree that the Universe was created due to the Big Bang event that took place roughly 13.78 billion years ago. Of course, that’s not necessarily the birth or everything that exists – something else might have existed before the Big Bang, but it’s impossible for now to know for sure.
Meet the GLASS-z13 (GN-z13) galaxy
GLASS-z13 (GN-z13) is the name of the newfound 13.5 billion-year-old galaxy in question, which means that it formed when our Universe was just about 300 million years old. The galaxy is also very small compared to our own Milky Way galaxy, as the former measures only 1,600 light-years across. Daily Mail brings the news regarding GN-z13’s discovery.
To be more precise, the unique discovery was possible thanks to James Webb’s NIRCam instrument, which is capable of detecting light from stars and galaxies that are located at farthest as possible.
Another small galaxy was discovered as well by the James Webb Space telescope along with GN-z13: the one named GN-z11.
The scientists wrote in their paper, as Daily Mail quotes:
These two objects already place novel constraints on galaxy evolution in the cosmic dawn epoch,’ researchers shared in the paper.
They indicate that the discovery of GNz11 was not simply a matter of good fortune, but that there is likely a population of UV luminous sources with very high star-formation efficiencies capable of compiling.
After revealing the first full-color images of the distant Universe on July 12, the James Webb Space Telescope has also recently shown a new image of Jupiter, and there are already some interesting plans for the future!
The new study paper was published in arXiv.