Everywhere we look, our universe is full of luminous matter.
The “red and dead” galaxy NGC 1277 is located in the Perseus cluster. While other galaxies contain a mixture of red and blue stars, this galaxy has not formed new stars in approximately 10 billion years. Foreground, closer objects such as stars as well as more distant galaxies are everywhere in this image.
Star-powered galaxies exist scattered throughout space.
The galaxies that make up the Pandora cluster, Abell 2744, are present in the three distinct components of the cluster that can be easily identified visually, while the remaining background sources are scattered throughout the Universe, including many from the first ~1 billion years of cosmic history. This field of view is now known to contain many of the earliest galaxies ever discovered, as well as the youngest proto-cluster of galaxies ever discovered: just 650 million years after the Big Bang.
Further away they are bluer, smaller and less developed.
Galaxies comparable to today’s Milky Way are numerous, but younger galaxies that resemble the Milky Way are essentially smaller, bluer, more chaotic, and generally richer in gas than the galaxies we see today. For the first galaxies of all, this effect reaches an extreme. As far as we’ve ever seen, galaxies obey these rules.
Even at the limits of our instruments, galaxies still abound.
This small portion of the JADES survey area, imaged with JWST’s NIRCam instrument, shows in detail relatively nearby galaxies, intermediate-distance galaxies that appear clustered together, and even ultra-distant galaxies that may be interacting or forming stars , despite their weak nature and red appearance. We are just beginning to explore the full richness of space with JWST.
There is no deeper look than JADES: JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey.
This image shows the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) survey area. This region includes and contains Hubble’s Extremely Deep Field and reveals new galaxies at record distances that Hubble could not see. The colors of JWST images are not “true color” but rather set based on various choices. This image, published in December 2022, has since been supplemented by subsequent observations in the same region of space, with spectroscopic observations needed to determine the distance to these galaxies.
With new spectroscopic data, the cosmic distance record has fallen again.
This image shows the spectrum, or intensity, as a function of wavelength of the distant galaxy JADES-GS-z14-0, obtained with the NIRSpec instrument on JWST. The Lyman cutoff tells us that the galaxy is at redshift z=14.32, which corresponds to an age of the Universe at that time of only 285 million years.
JADES-GS-z14-0 is now the most distant galaxy ever discovered: just 285 million years after the Big Bang.
If you plot the cosmic distance record over time, it’s clear that there have been many big jumps: in the 1960s, in the late 1990s, and now again in the 2020s in the JWST era. Although there are still uncertainties in the cosmology, this new record galaxy should appear between 270 and 305 million years after the Big Bang.
Here are the 5 big lessons we’ve already learned since its discovery.
Shown in the context of the JWST JADES field, the galaxy JADEs-GS-z14-0 is completely inconspicuous, yet it has just broken the cosmic distance record again, becoming the first galaxy ever discovered when the Universe was less than 300 years old million years: just 2.1% of its current age.
1.) Not all early galaxies are compact.
Among the most distant galaxies, GN-z11 and GHZ2 are among the brightest and yet are still remarkably compact. JADES-GS-z14-1 is more typical: fainter but still very compact, while JADES-GS-z14-0 is more puzzling: bright and extended, suggesting a physical size of ~1700 light-years on the incredible his distance.
Although (second-place) JADES-GS-z14-1 is a point, its more distant companion now spans 1,700 light-years.
The galaxy JADES-GS-z14-0, along with a neighboring, much closer unrelated galaxy that lies in exactly the same line of sight. Its extended nature is clearly visible even in this extended NIRCam image of the two galaxies.
2.) Not all superdistant galaxy candidates are correct.
Before JWST, there were about 40 known candidates for ultra-distant galaxies, mainly through Hubble observations. Early results from JWST revealed many more ultra-distant galaxy candidates, but now as many as 717 of them have been found in just JADES’ 125 square arcminute field of view. The entire night sky is more than 1 million times brighter, indicating that there are at least hundreds of millions of these ultra-distant galaxies to be found. While some will survive spectroscopic tracking, others will not. There is a lot of science to be done.
Some possible ultra-distant galaxies are simply dusty and intrinsically red, spectroscopy reveals.
While JADES-GS-z14-0 and JADES-GS-z14-1 (in red) turned out to be genuine, ultra-distant galaxies, many of the candidate galaxies (in blue) will turn out to be imposters at smaller distances from us: simply interior red and/or dusty. The blue dot with a black circle around it was also examined by NIRSpec, which showed that it is not an ultra-distant galaxy at all.
3.) Some galaxies are “hidden” by closer intruders.
JADES-GS-z14-0, in the upper inset, lies behind (and just to the right of) a closer, brighter, and bluer galaxy. Only through the power of spectroscopy with incredible resolution capable of separating the two sources could the nature of the more distant object be determined.
JADES-GS-z14-0 was found only by separating this galaxy from a closer one along the same line of sight.
The highly advanced NIRSpec instrument aboard JWST can pick up light from a very small fraction of space. By properly aiming the telescope, the desired sources, JADES-GS-z14-0 and JADES-GS-z14-1 in this case, can be obtained separately even from very close, partially overlapping sources.
4.) This new record holder is remarkably, unexpectedly bright.
By overlaying the spectra of the three most distant galaxies ever discovered on the same graph, JADES-GS-z13-0 (former record holder), JADES-GS-z14-0 (current record holder), and JADES-GS-z14- 1 (newly discovered together with JADES-GS-z14-0), we can compare the brightness of these three galaxies. The most distant is also the brightest by a factor of 4 or 5, which is a puzzle for astronomers.
Five times brighter than the previous (JADES-GS-z13-0) record holder, JADES-GS-z14-0 is even shockingly visible to MIRI eyes.
This four-panel spread shows four different views of galaxy JADES-GS-z14-0 with photometric MIRI data. The fact that this galaxy has so much emission at 7.7 microns suggests that neutral, heated hydrogen (Balmer beta) and doubly ionized oxygen are present in large quantities.
5.) But this galaxy is extremely poor in dust.
While galaxies discovered later typically show large amounts of dust, consistent with theories of dust production from supernova events, these two new record galaxies show evidence of dust produced only by AGB stars and not by a supernova. That’s a mysterious surprise in the new data.
It’s almost as if no supernovas have occurred in it.
The central region of the supernova remnant SN 1987A as seen for the first time by JWST’s NIRCam instrument in 2023. The gaseous and dusty elements inside the remnant have been revealed in more detail by JWST than any previous observatory, such as the supernova’s core collapse are incredible places for the production of cosmic dust.
With JWST, the past of our Universe continues to be in focus.
Even from this magnified view of the JADES field, it is very difficult to pick out the most distant galaxy ever discovered, JADES-GS-z14-0, by eye. This animation shows its location with a green circle: it overlaps with a brighter, bluer, closer galaxy.
Primarily, Mute Monday tells an astronomical story in images, visuals and no more than 200 words.
