Scientists Just Discovered a Galaxy Older Than Thought—And It Changes Everything

A Galaxy That Defies Physics Shows Up at Cosmic Dawn

The James Webb Space Telescope has just spotted something absolutely mind-boggling—a galaxy that existed when the universe was barely 280 million years old. The object, named MoM-z14, glowed only 280 million years after the Big Bang, making it the oldest galaxy we have ever seen.

It is a mind-boggling 13.5 billion light years from Earth, and that means the light we see from the galaxy has been traveling to us practically since the Big Bang. This isn't just another space discovery—it's forcing scientists to completely rethink how the universe formed in its earliest moments.

The Record-Breaking Measurements That Shocked Astronomers

The new contender is MoM-z14, a galaxy visible just 280 million years after the Big Bang, but it's not alone in rewriting the record books. The furthest galaxy, JADES-GS-z14-0, is seen as it was around 300 million years after the Big Bang, existing at least 100 million years earlier than the previous record holder.

That means that the light the JWST saw from this primordial galaxy has been traveling for 13.5 billion years on its way to reach us. JWST's studies showed that JADES-GS-z14-0 has a redshift of 14.32, the highest ever recorded.

Think of it like this: the universe is 13.8 billion years old, but we're seeing these galaxies when they were cosmic toddlers.

Why These Ancient Galaxies Are So Shockingly Bright

What's truly bizarre about these discoveries is that these ancient galaxies are far brighter than anyone expected. In fact, if you look at most of the theoretical models for how galaxies form in the early universe, very few of them predicted the galaxies would be as bright as MoM-z14.

So just the fact that we see anything at these early cosmic times is really quite a change in our understanding of how galaxies form in the early universe. JADES-GS-z14-0 seems to be an outlier, appearing as an especially radiant blob that suggests it's packing hundreds of millions of times the mass of our sun into a diameter of approximately 1,700 light-years.

It's like finding a fully-grown adult in a nursery full of newborns.

The Universe Was Supposed to Be Empty Back Then

Here's where things get really weird: the early universe was supposed to be mostly empty space with just the faintest wisps of gas. "The first few hundred million years of the universe was a very active phase, with lots of gas clouds collapsing to form new stars," Tobias Looser, lead author of the study from the University of Cambridge, said in a statement.

"Galaxies need a rich supply of gas to form new stars, and the early universe was like an all-you-can-eat buffet." But these galaxies formed so quickly that they challenge our basic understanding of how long it takes to build a galaxy. "It is stunning that the universe can make such a galaxy in only 300 million years", said one researcher.

Strange Chemistry That Shouldn't Exist Yet

The chemical composition of these ancient galaxies is throwing scientists for another loop. And I would say the second thing that sticks out - and it's a pretty remarkable achievement of the telescope itself - is we can actually see individual elements inside of the galaxy.

So for example, one of the things they discovered was that there seems to be an overabundance of nitrogen, and there's not a single theoretical model that predicted this much nitrogen this early on. In March 2025, astronomers reported the detection of oxygen in JADES-GS-z14-0, marking the most distant observation of this element to date.

This discovery was achieved using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile's Atacama Desert. The presence of oxygen suggests that the galaxy underwent rapid formation and chemical maturation, challenging previous assumptions about the timeline of heavy element production in the early Universe.

The Dead Galaxy That Lived Fast and Died Young

Not all ancient galaxies are burning bright—some have already burned out completely. Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have spotted a 'dead' galaxy when the universe was just 700 million years old, the oldest such galaxy ever observed.

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, an international team of astronomers led by the University of Cambridge have spotted a 'dead' galaxy when the universe was just 700 million years old, the oldest such galaxy ever observed. The Webb observations revealed that the newly discovered galaxy, named JADES-GS-z7-01-QU, experienced a short, energetic burst of star formation that lasted between 30 million and 90 million years before star birth suddenly stopped.

Imagine a massive factory that builds stars for 30 million years, then suddenly shuts down forever.

How These Discoveries Could Rewrite Cosmology

Some scientists are now questioning whether our understanding of the universe's age is even correct. Based on high resolution high sensitivity data from the James Webb Space Telescope obtained when observing galaxies with redshift close to 8, which were in existence when the universe was only 600 million years old, the research team estimate that these galaxies have, with 95% probability stellar populations with ages of between 900 and 2400 million years.

This would mean that their stars would have been formed several hundred million years before the Big Bang. The work we are presenting makes the situation even more disconcerting for conventional cosmology, because it uses our most advanced scientific understanding to show that the stars in these galaxies are older than the universe itself, which makes no sense.

What would you have guessed—that we'd find galaxies this old and bright in the cosmic equivalent of yesterday?

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