The James Webb Space Telescope has helped scientists confirm that the JADES-GS-z13-0 object is the oldest galaxy ever discovered. It is another challenge to current theories that explain the evolution of the universe, individual stars, and galaxies.

In mid-2022, scientists managed to detect four objects in the early Universe. This was one of the first jobs of the new space observatory. One of the four objects found was the galaxy JADES-GS-z13-0. Following a spectral analysis, the scientists concluded that JADES-GS-z13-0 is the oldest galaxy ever discovered. It was formed 320 million years after the Big Bang. The other three objects were designated JADES-GS-z10-0, JADES-GS-z11-0, and JADES-GS-z12-0. They appeared about 130 million years after the formation of JADES-GS-z13-0.

The four galaxies were not very massive. While the Milky Way has a mass of 1.5 trillion solar masses, each of the four galaxies discovered last year were only about 100 million times more massive than our own. However, every year three stars are born. Before the discovery of JADES-GS-z13-0, GN-z11 was the oldest known galaxy, discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope about 7 years ago. It appeared 400 million years after the Big Bang.

source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-023-01918-w