The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has recently made a ground breaking discovering four of the most distant galaxies ever observed. These galaxies were formed when the universe was in its infancy stage and the light has taken 13.4 billion years to reach Earth.
The NIRCam instrument on the JWST was used to detect infrared light, which is the only type of light that can travel through such vast distances. The astronomers used NIRCam to observe four previously unknown faint galaxies.
The most distant galaxy, GN-z11, is of particular interest as it was formed just 320 million years after the Big Bang, which means it was formed when the universe was only 2% of its current age. Its light has been redshifted to the point that it is now in the infrared part of the spectrum. The other three galaxies, GN-z13, GN-z14, and GN-z15, were formed between 400 and 600 million years after the Big Bang and are also very faint and low in mass.
This discovery is significant because it sheds light on the formation of galaxies during the early stages of the universe, suggesting that they were forming very early on and were smaller than the galaxies we see today. This breakthrough could help to further our understanding of how galaxies have evolved over time.
