On May 28th, astronomers finally laid eyes on the formation of galaxies, a phenomenon long theorized but never before seen. The James Webb Space Telescope has captured the process of the earliest galaxies in the universe for the first time.
Observing the "baby universe" from about 13.3 to 13.4 billion years ago, shortly after the Big Bang occurred a few billion years earlier, the telescope has peered into the universe's infancy. During the first billion years after the Big Bang, the universe was shrouded in a fog of hydrogen gas that severely impeded the propagation of light. However, the James Webb Telescope has the ability to penetrate this fog, allowing us to glimpse what the early universe looked like through the infrared spectrum.
Observations indicate that three new galaxies are voraciously absorbing massive amounts of gas, rapidly expanding.
Further research reveals that these three emerged just 400-600 million years after the Big Bang, making them the earliest known galaxies, though there could be even earlier ones.
After all, for a universe in its infancy, our knowledge remains quite limited.
