The furthest galaxy, JADES-GS-z14-0, is seen as it was around 300 million years after the Big Bang, existing at least 100 million years earlier than the previous record holder. That means that the light the JWST saw from this primordial galaxy has been traveling for 13.5 billion years on its way to reach us.
JADES-GS-z14-0 isn't alone, either. It was discovered along with another galaxy, JADES-GS-z14-1, that is almost as far away and takes second place in the ranking of the earliest galaxies ever seen by humanity.
The announcement of the discoveries, made in Oct. 2023 and Jan. 2024, are the latest developments in the ongoing investigation of cosmic dawn that the $10 billion telescope has facilitated as part of the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) program. JADES aims to provide vital insights into the ways in which the stars, gas, and black holes were evolving in primordial galaxies when the 13.8 billion-year-old universe was very young.
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With a width of around 1,600 light-years across, this "cosmic dawn" galaxy is also remarkable for how big and bright it is.
"The size of the galaxy clearly proves that most of the light is being produced by large numbers of young stars, rather than material falling onto a supermassive black hole in the galaxy's center, which would [make it] appear much smaller, "JADES team leader Daniel Eisenstein from the Harvard & Smithsonian's Center for Astrophysics (CfA) said in a separate statement.
The extreme brightness of JADES-GS-z14-0 and the fact this luminosity is powered by young stars means this galaxy represents the most striking evidence for the rapid formation of large, massive galaxies in the early universe found thus far.
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JADES-GS-z14-0 has a redshift of z = 14.32, while the previous most distant galaxy, JADES-GS-z13-0, has a redshift of z = 13.2, which placed it as existing 400 million years after the Big Bang.
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When it was first spotted, the primordial galaxy was so close to a closer foreground galaxy that the team suspected they could be celestial neighbors. This idea was dispelled in October last year when the JADES crew spent five days performing a deep analysis of JADES-GS-z14-0 with NIRCam. The application of filters that are specifically tailored to identify early galaxies confirmed the extreme distance to JADES-GS-z14-0.
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Another surprise was the discovery of oxygen in JADES-GS-z14-0. Elements heavier than hydrogen and helium are forged by stars during their lifetimes and then distributed through galaxies when these stars explode. The observation of oxygen in JADES-GS-z14-0 could indicate that at least one generation of stars has already lived and died in this very early galaxy.
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Helton added that given the relatively small region of the sky that the JWST searched to find JADES-GS-z14-0, its discovery has profound implications for the predicted number of bright galaxies we see in the early universe.
I figured that z14-0 had a z of 14+, but I'm surprised to see that z14-1 has a z of 13.2. I'm curious what the exact reasoning is with the naming convention. Perhaps it's just that they were...
I figured that z14-0 had a z of 14+, but I'm surprised to see that z14-1 has a z of 13.2. I'm curious what the exact reasoning is with the naming convention. Perhaps it's just that they were discovered during the search for a z=14 galaxy?
No, I did not misread. The problem is clearly that I just straight up didn't read and assumed what it was saying. No need to mince words. Thanks for the correction.
No, I did not misread. The problem is clearly that I just straight up didn't read and assumed what it was saying. No need to mince words. Thanks for the correction.
For some reason I find myself skeptical that the scientsts' confidence in this measurement of the age of these galaxies is greater than their confidence in all the established theories about the...
For some reason I find myself skeptical that the scientsts' confidence in this measurement of the age of these galaxies is greater than their confidence in all the established theories about the early universe it defies (knowing little about either subject). But I hope it is true because that means we're learning something new!
The age and distance measurements are technically red shifts of spectrograms, I believe. (It’s also how they could detect oxygen.) If they’re wrong about what red shifts mean then I think they’re...
The age and distance measurements are technically red shifts of spectrograms, I believe. (It’s also how they could detect oxygen.)
If they’re wrong about what red shifts mean then I think they’re wrong about the distances of lots of galaxies?
I think the best we can assume is that based on our current understanding of how things work, this is factual and accurate until we are able to establish better science. That's the nice part about...
I think the best we can assume is that based on our current understanding of how things work, this is factual and accurate until we are able to establish better science. That's the nice part about science, when we are incorrect we revise and make a better observation.
Purely speculating, but I wonder if some phenomenon of the early universe could be affecting the redshift in a way to make the galaxies appear older than they are? Do redshift measurements assume...
Purely speculating, but I wonder if some phenomenon of the early universe could be affecting the redshift in a way to make the galaxies appear older than they are? Do redshift measurements assume a linear relationship between the amount of shift and the age that could be inaccurate?
My understanding is that the main way in which it is generally thought that there may not be a linear relationship between distance and redshift/expansion speed/age is if the expansion of the...
My understanding is that the main way in which it is generally thought that there may not be a linear relationship between distance and redshift/expansion speed/age is if the expansion of the universe is changing over time. In my undergrad classes, we calculated ways to rule out certain other factors that could play into redshift not being a linear relationship (69.8 km/s/Mpc), I believe including ruling out the speed of light changing over time and a greater than expected amount of dust between galaxies making redshifts appear greater than they should.
Our other observations are consistent with a constant expansion, but I am not sure how many of our observations that tie into e.g. the Universe being flat (as opposed to open or closed) rely on redshifts, so I'm not sure if using them to prove a linear relationship would be tautological.
Hopefully one of our users who knows more sees my comment and is unable to suffer someone being wrong on the Internet and provides a better explanation.
From the article:
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I figured that z14-0 had a z of 14+, but I'm surprised to see that z14-1 has a z of 13.2. I'm curious what the exact reasoning is with the naming convention. Perhaps it's just that they were discovered during the search for a z=14 galaxy?
I think you misread. Z14-0 has a redshift of 14.32 and z13-0 has a redshift of 13.2
No, I did not misread. The problem is clearly that I just straight up didn't read and assumed what it was saying. No need to mince words. Thanks for the correction.
For some reason I find myself skeptical that the scientsts' confidence in this measurement of the age of these galaxies is greater than their confidence in all the established theories about the early universe it defies (knowing little about either subject). But I hope it is true because that means we're learning something new!
The age and distance measurements are technically red shifts of spectrograms, I believe. (It’s also how they could detect oxygen.)
If they’re wrong about what red shifts mean then I think they’re wrong about the distances of lots of galaxies?
I think the best we can assume is that based on our current understanding of how things work, this is factual and accurate until we are able to establish better science. That's the nice part about science, when we are incorrect we revise and make a better observation.
Purely speculating, but I wonder if some phenomenon of the early universe could be affecting the redshift in a way to make the galaxies appear older than they are? Do redshift measurements assume a linear relationship between the amount of shift and the age that could be inaccurate?
My understanding is that the main way in which it is generally thought that there may not be a linear relationship between distance and redshift/expansion speed/age is if the expansion of the universe is changing over time. In my undergrad classes, we calculated ways to rule out certain other factors that could play into redshift not being a linear relationship (69.8 km/s/Mpc), I believe including ruling out the speed of light changing over time and a greater than expected amount of dust between galaxies making redshifts appear greater than they should.
Our other observations are consistent with a constant expansion, but I am not sure how many of our observations that tie into e.g. the Universe being flat (as opposed to open or closed) rely on redshifts, so I'm not sure if using them to prove a linear relationship would be tautological.
Hopefully one of our users who knows more sees my comment and is unable to suffer someone being wrong on the Internet and provides a better explanation.