James Webb Telescope captures oldest galaxy
<p dir="ltr">After its <a href="https://oversixty.com.au/entertainment/technology/nasa-releases-highest-resolution-images-of-infrared-universe" target="_blank" rel="noopener">first images</a> spread like wildfire across the internet, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is believed to have broken the record for the oldest galaxy ever detected.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Scientists from the Harvard and Smithsonian Center of Astrophysics have identified a 13.5-billion-year-old galaxy called GLASS-z13, which dates to 300 million years after the Big Bang.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The previous record-holder was a galaxy known as GN-Z1, spotted by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2016, with its light taking 13.4 billion years to reach Hubble.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The team of researchers, who shared their findings in a pair of preprints published on Wednesday, also identified another galaxy, GLASS-z11, which is roughly the same age as GLASS-z13.</p>
<p><span id="docs-internal-guid-52462869-7fff-9362-ee05-0113f733676e">"We found two very compelling candidates for extremely distant galaxies," Rohan Naidu, one of the researchers who detected GLASS-z13 in Webb's data, told <em><a href="https://go.skimresources.com/?id=35871X943606&isjs=1&jv=15.2.4-stackpath&sref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.businessinsider.com%2Fwebb-space-telescope-found-oldest-and-most-distant-known-galaxy-2022-7&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newscientist.com%2Farticle%2F2329601-jwst-has-found-the-oldest-galaxy-we-have-ever-seen-in-the-universe%2F&xs=1&xtz=-600&xuuid=388e4cc6413616544971c2f592b98908&abp=1&xcust=xid%3Afr1658964936510ffc&xjsf=other_click__auxclick%20%5B2%5D" target="_blank" rel="noopener">New Scientist</a></em>. </span></p>
<p><img src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/2022/07/glass-z13-1.jpg" alt="" width="1280" height="720" /></p>
<p dir="ltr"><em>The red circle captured by the James Webb Space Telescope is believed to be the oldest galaxy ever observed. Image: Naidu et al, P. Oesch, T. Treu, GLASS-JWST, NASA/CSA/ESA/STScI</em></p>
<p dir="ltr">"If these galaxies are at the distance we think they are, the universe is only a few hundred million years old at that point."</p>
<p dir="ltr">Researchers told the publication that these two galaxies are relatively small compared to the Milky Way galaxy, which is 100,000 light-years wide. In comparison, GLASS-z13 is approximately 1600 light-years wide, while GLASS-z11 is 2,300 light-years in diameter.</p>
<p dir="ltr">"With the advent of JWST, we now have an unprecedented view of the universe thanks to the extremely sensitive NIRCam instrument," researchers explained in the <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.09434" target="_blank" rel="noopener">preprint</a>.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Though the JWST commenced science operations in mid-July, it is expected that it will help scientists uncover more about the universe’s age and evolution. </p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="https://webb.nasa.gov/content/science/firstLight.html#:~:text=Webb%20will%20be%20a%20powerful,darkness%20of%20the%20early%20universe." target="_blank" rel="noopener">NASA attributes this</a> to its ability to peer further back in time - as far as the first few hundred million years after the Big Bang - allowing for the discovery of previously unseen galaxies.</p>
<p><span id="docs-internal-guid-9589b833-7fff-c5fc-c0d6-834b46d8fe93"></span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><em>Image: Naidu et al, P. Oesch, T. Treu, GLASS-JWST, NASA/CSA/ESA/STScI</em></p>
