If the finding is confirmed, it would be one of the earliest galaxies ever observed, and its presence would indicate that galaxies started forming much earlier than many astronomers previously thought.

The finding has been published on the preprint server arXiv and is awaiting publication in a peer-reviewed journal. The team has identified one particularly exciting object-dubbed Maisie’s galaxy in honor of project head Steven Finkelstein’s daughter-that they estimate is being observed as it was just 290 million years after the Big Bang (astronomers refer to this as a redshift of z=14). The images represent some of the first out of a major collaboration of astronomers and other academic researchers teaming with NASA and global partners to uncover new insights about the universe. Hubble orbits Earth, but Webb orbits the sun, around 1 million miles away from Earth.Two new images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope show what may be among the earliest galaxies ever observed.īoth images include objects from more than 13 billion years ago, and one offers a much wider field of view than Webb’s First Deep Field image, which was released amid great fanfare July 12.

NASA first released Webb's first high-resolution images just weeks ago in July.īigger than Hubble, the telescope is capable of observing extremely distant galaxies, allowing scientists to learn about early star formation. Webb launched on Christmas Day last year after decades of work to create the world's largest most sophisticated space telescope. The galaxy is located in the constellation Pisces, according to the European Space Agency, which collaborates with NASA on Hubble and Webb. Just a few days ago, NASA released stunning new images produced by the Webb telescope and the Hubble Telescope showcasing the Phantom Galaxy, a spiral of solar systems 32 million light-years away from Earth. Since star-forming regions in our galaxy don't produce stars at the same rate as the Tarantula Nebula and have a different chemical composition, the Tarantula is the closest example of what occurred in the universe as it reached high noon.Ĭapturing star formation in the Tarantula Nebula is just the latest discovery by NASA's Webb telescope. The Tarantula Nebula has long been a focus of astronomers studying star formation because it has a chemical makeup similar to that of the gigantic star-forming regions at the universe's cosmic noon - when the cosmos was just a feel billion years old and star formation was at its peak, according to NASA. Viewing through another Webb instrument that detects longer infrared wavelengths, and therefore penetrates dust grains in the nebula, revealed a 'previously unseen cosmic environment,' NASA said - the hot stars faded while the cooler gas and dust glowed. 'Without Webb's high-resolution spectra at infrared wavelengths, this episode of star formation in action could not have been revealed.' 'However, NIRSpec showed that the star was only just beginning to emerge from its pillar and still maintained an insulating cloud of dust around itself. 'Astronomers previously thought this star might be a bit older and already in the process of clearing out a bubble around itself,' according to NASA. The Webb telescope's Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) caught a very young star doing that, which changed astronomers' previous beliefs about that star. These protostars emerge from their 'dusty cocoons' and help shape the nebula. The densest surrounding areas of the nebula resist erosion by the stars' strong winds, forming pillars that seem to point back toward the cluster and hold forming protostars. The Webb telescope's Near-Infrared Camera, also called NIRCam, has helped researchers see the region 'in a new light, including tens of thousands of never-before-seen young stars that were previously shrouded in cosmic dust,' according to NASA. Resembling a burrowing tarantula's home line with its silk, it houses the hottest and most massive stars known to astronomers, according to NASA. At 161,000 light-years away from Earth in the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy, the Tarantula Nebula is the nickname for 30 Doradus, the 'largest and brightest star-forming region in the Local Group, the galaxies nearest our Milky Way,' according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

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