A deeper look through a massive cluster has turned up two galaxies that formed just after the cosmic dawn.
In late June, the Webb Space Telescope trained its eye on two of the farthest galaxies seen to date. The galaxies existed several hundred million years after the Big Bang, making them some of the earliest light sources to emerge in the universe.
The galaxies are seen on the outskirts of Abell 2744, a giant galaxy cluster (in fact, a hodge-podge of four smaller clusters) in the constellation Sculptor. One of the galaxies existed 450 million years after the Big Bang, the moment that the universe came into being; the other is seen just 350 million years after.
The galaxies’ distances correspond to redshifts of approximately 10.5 and 12.5. Because the universe is expanding, light gets stretched out to longer, redder wavelengths as it travels through space. So an object with a greater redshift is farther away and more ancient than something with a smaller redshift. They’re similar in age to Maisie’s Galaxy, a distant object seen in a Webb deep field at a redshift of 11.
