James Webb telescope sees oldest galaxy ever: 13.5 billion years old

Scientists have discovered the oldest galaxy ever. The light shone about 290 million years after the Big Bang and is now approaching Earth about 13.5 billion years later.

The light was seen with the American-European James Webb Space Telescope, which was launched at the end of 2021. It is much more advanced than its predecessors and can therefore look much further back in time. The discoverers were a bit hesitant at first, because the light was brighter than expected, but measurements showed the age was correct.

Galaxy JADES-GS-z14-0 is hundreds of millions of times as massive as our sun, and that also surprised scientists. “How can nature create such a bright, massive and large galaxy in less than 300 million years?” ask researchers Stefano Carniani and Kevin Hainline.

Cosmic dawn

For the past two years, scientists have used the Webb telescope to investigate the cosmic dawn. This ‘cosmic dawn’ is the period in the first few hundred million years after the Big Bang, when the first galaxies formed. The oldest galaxy found so far was formed approximately 350 million years after the Big Bang.

The telescope is a collaboration between the American NASA, the European Space Agency ESA and the Canadian CSA. The instrument cost more than 10 billion euros and was launched into space years later than planned. It is the largest and most powerful space telescope ever built.