The James Webb Space Telescope sees the birth of three ancient galaxies

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope may have detected some of the earliest galaxies in the known universe in the midst of being born.

- BRANDON SPECKTOR

The researchers reported the detection of what appears to be three infant galaxies sprouting from a primordial cloud of hydrogen and helium gas just 400 to 600 million years after the Big Bang. This discovery could open a window into the murky period known as the Epoch of Reionisation, a time when the earliest stars and galaxies first began to pierce the dark, dense clouds of gas around them and reveal the transparent universe we know today. “These galaxies are like sparkling islands in a sea of otherwise neutral opaque gas,” said Kasper Heintz, an assistant professor of astrophysics at the Cosmic Dawn Center at the University of Copenhagen. “Without Webb we would not be able to observe these very early galaxies, let alone learn so much about their forma