James Webb Space Telescope reveals unexpected complex chemistry in primordial galaxy
This infrared image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope was taken by the onboard Near-Infrared Camera for the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey, or JADES, program. The NIRCam data was used to determine which galaxies to study further with spectroscopic observations. One such galaxy, JADES-GS-z14-0 (shown in the pullout), was determined to be at a redshift of 14.3, making it the current record-holder for most distant known galaxy. This corresponds to a time less than 300 million years after the big bang.
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Brant Robertson (UC Santa Cruz), Ben Johnson (CfA), Sandro Tacchella (Cambridge), Marcia Rieke (University of Arizona), Daniel Eisenstein (CfA), Phill Cargile (CfA)
University of Arizona astronomers have learned more about a surprisingly mature galaxy that existed when the universe was just less than 300 million years old – about 2% of its current age.
Observed by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, the galaxy – designated JADES-GS-z14-0 – is unexpectedly bright and chemically complex for an object from this primordial era, the researchers said. This provides a rare glimpse into the universe's earliest chapter.
Jakob Helton
The findings, published in the journal Nature Astronomy, build upon the researchers' previous discovery, reported in 2024, of JADES-GS-z14-0 as the most distant galaxy ever observed. While this initial discovery established the galaxy's record-breaking distance and unexpected brightness, the new research delves deeper into its chemical composition and evolutionary state.
The work was done as part of the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey, or JADES, a major James Webb Space Telescope program designed to study distant galaxies.
Kevin Hainline
This wasn't simply stumbling upon something unexpected, said Kevin Hainline, co-author of the new study and an associate research professor at the U of A Steward Observatory. The survey was deliberately designed to find distant galaxies, but this one broke the team's records in ways they didn't anticipate; it was intrinsically bright and had a complex chemical composition that was totally unexpected so early in the universe's history.
"It's not just a tiny little nugget. It's bright and fairly extended for the age of the universe when we observed it," Hainline said.
"The fact that we found this galaxy in a tiny region of the sky means that there should be more of these out there," said lead study author Jakob Helton, a graduate researcher at Steward Observatory. "If we looked at the whole sky, which we can't do with JWST, we would eventually find more of these extreme objects."
The research team used multiple instruments onboard JWST, including the Near Infrared Camera, or NIRCam, whose construction was led by U of A Regents Professor of Astronomy Marcia Rieke. Another instrument on the telescope – the Mid-Infrared Instrument, or MIRI – revealed something extraordinary: significant amounts of oxygen.
Timeline of the universe: Although we are not sure exactly when the first stars began to shine, we know that they must have formed sometime after the era of Recombination, when hydrogen and helium atoms formed (380,000 years after the big bang), and before the oldest-known galaxies existed (400 million years after the big bang). The ultraviolet light emitted by the first stars broke down the neutral hydrogen gas filling the universe into hydrogen ions and free electrons, initiating the era of Reionization and the end of the Dark Ages of the universe.
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
In astronomy, anything heavier than helium is considered a "metal," Helton said. Such metals require generations of stars to produce. The early universe contained only hydrogen, helium and trace amounts of lithium. But the discovery of substantial oxygen in the JADES-GS-z14-0 galaxy suggests the galaxy had been forming stars for potentially 100 million years before it was observed.
To make oxygen, the galaxy must have started out very early on, because it would have had to form a generation of stars, said George Rieke, Regents Professor of Astronomy and the study's senior author. Those stars must have evolved and exploded as supernovae to release oxygen into interstellar space, from which new stars would form and evolve.
"It's a very complicated cycle to get as much oxygen as this galaxy has. So, it is genuinely mind boggling," Rieke said.
George Rieke
The finding suggests that star formation began even earlier than scientists previously thought, which pushes back the timeline for when the first galaxies could have formed after the Big Bang.
The observation required approximately nine days of telescope time, including 167 hours of NIRCam imaging and 43 hours of MIRI imaging, focused on an incredibly small portion of the sky.
The U of A astronomers were lucky that this galaxy happened to sit in the perfect spot for them to observe with MIRI. If they had pointed the telescope just a fraction of a degree in any direction, they would have missed getting this crucial mid-infrared data, Helton said.
"Imagine a grain of sand at the end of your arm. You see how large it is on the sky – that's how large we looked at," Helton said.
The existence of such a developed galaxy so early in cosmic history serves as a powerful test case for theoretical models of galaxy formation.
"Our involvement here is a product of the U of A leading in infrared astronomy since the mid-'60s, when it first started. We had the first major infrared astronomy group over in the Lunar and Planetary lab, with Gerard Kuiper, Frank Low and Harold Johnson," Rieke said.
As humans gain the ability to directly observe and understand galaxies that existed during the universe's infancy, it may provide crucial insights into how the universe evolved from simple elements to the complex chemistry necessary for life as we know it.
"We're in an incredible time in astronomy history," Hainline said. "We're able to understand galaxies that are well beyond anything humans have ever found and see them in many different ways and really understand them. That's really magic."
The study was supported in part by NASA contracts NAS5-02105 and NNX13AD82G to the University of Arizona, the European Research Council Advanced Grant 789056 "FirstGalaxies," and ERC Advanced Grant 695671 "QUENCH." Additional funding was provided by the Science and Technology Facilities Council, the UKRI Frontier Research grant "RISEandFALL," the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, the National Science Foundation and the Royal Society, among others.
