Tucson Standard

When Kevin Hainline, an associate research professor at the University of Arizona, first saw the data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in January 2023, he was taken aback. The galaxies identified as JADES GS-z14-0 and GS-z14-1 appeared on his screen as potential candidates for being among the most distant ever observed.

After months of analysis, it was confirmed that these galaxies are indeed the most distant known to humanity. The light from these galaxies dates back to a time when the universe was just 290 million years old for GS-z14-0 and around 300 million years old for GS-z14-1. This period is referred to by astronomers as the cosmic dawn.

The international team of astronomers working on the James Webb Space Telescope Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) made this discovery. "All the distant galaxies that we've found thus far were pretty faint," Hainline noted. However, GS-z14-0 was unexpectedly bright, a finding that puzzled scientists due to its distance.

The discovery was detailed in three papers published on arXiv, an online archive of research papers. The first paper confirms the distance of GS-z14-0 and was led by Stefano Carniani from Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy. Jakob Helton, a graduate student at UArizona, authored a second paper detailing the galaxy's properties using data collected by JWST's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). Brant Robertson from the University of California Santa Cruz led a third paper addressing how such a massive galaxy could form so early.

These findings challenge current understandings of galaxy formation. As George Rieke from UArizona stated, "Simulations show that they grow as the universe ages. And the problem with this galaxy is it's pushing against what we think is the maximum mass for a dark halo at that time."

The JADES team will continue their exploration with JWST to uncover more about these ancient cosmic structures and possibly discover other similar galaxies yet unidentified.