This illustration shows a galaxy forming only a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, when gas was a mix of transparent and opaque during the Era of Reionization. Data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope show that there is a lot of cold, neutral gas in the neighborhood of these early galaxies – and that the gas may be more dense than anticipated.
“You could say that these are the first ‘direct’ images of galaxy formation that we’ve ever seen. Whereas the James Webb has previously shown us early galaxies at later stages of evolution, here we witness their very birth, and thus, the construction of the first star systems in the universe,” says Assistant Professor Kasper Elm Heintz from the Niels Bohr Institute, who led the new study.
“During the few hundred million years after the Big Bang, the first stars formed, before stars and gas began to coalesce into galaxies. This is the process that we see the beginning of in our observations,” explains Associate Professor Darach Watson. The first stars were formed after a few hundred million years. And within the hearts of these stars, the larger and more complex atoms that we have around us were formed.
“For now, this is about mapping our new observations of galaxies being formed in even greater detail than before. At the same time, we are constantly trying to push the limit of how far out into the universe we can see. So, perhaps we’ll reach even further,” says Simone Vejlgaard.
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