James Webb Space Telescope helps researchers uncover early galaxies in 'new chapter in astronomy' - Fox News

In what James Webb Space Telescope researchers call a "whole new chapter in astronomy," the observatory has helped to locate two early galaxies, one of which may contain the most distant starlight ever seen. .

The scientists found that the galaxies existed around 450 and 350 million years after the big bang, though future spectroscopic measurements with Webb will help confirm these initial findings. .

The galaxy labeled (1) existed only 450 million years after the big bang.

The galaxy labeled (2) existed 350 million years after the big bang.

(Credits: Science: NASA, ESA, CSA, Tommaso Treu (UCLA); Image Processing: Zolt G.

"With Webb, we were amazed to find the most distant starlight that anyone had ever seen, just days after Webb released its first data," Rohan Naidu, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told NASA of the more distant GLASS galaxy – referred to as GLASS-z12 – which is believed to date back to 350 million years after the big bang. .

The previous record holder is galaxy GN-z11, which existed 400 million years after the big bang.

These two galaxies are thought to have existed 350 & 450 million years after the big bang (left to right).

(Credits: Science: NASA, ESA, CSA, Tommaso Treu (UCLA); Image Processing: Zolt G.

(Credits: Science: NASA, ESA, CSA, Tommaso Treu (UCLA); Image Processing: Zolt G.

These galaxies would have had to have started coming together maybe just 100 million years after the Big Bang

(Credits: Science: NASA, ESA, CSA, Tommaso Treu (UCLA); Image Processing: Zolt G