The red object you are seeing in this video could be the farthest galaxy found to date. It has revealed some of the most intriguing secrets of the early universe.
Astronomers have found dozens of galaxies that existed at least a billion years after the big bang. Still, the first few hundred million years of the universe remain an uncharted epoch.
One of the most established methods to find distances to deep space galaxies is measuring the amount of redshift. This involves analyzing the spectral lines observed in distant galaxies and comparing them with those we observe on Earth.
Only one galaxy has been spectroscopically confirmed in the era of z > 10. Still, the Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam instrument has opened a window to the z greater than ten epochs of the cosmos.
A new research paper has been published that reveals two remarkably luminous galaxy candidates between z = 11 and 13, which exist when the universe was just 300 million years old. The stellar mass of these two objects indicates that star formation took place quickly in the early galaxies.
Although the discovery of GLz-13 in the early data release demonstrates the true power of Webb, there is an interesting point to note. The galaxy HD1 has the record for the highest redshift of any galaxy in the first billion years of the universe.
Webb will have to perform a detailed analysis of HD1 and Glz13 to determine an accurate redshift value. If Webb is working at full capacity, hundreds of galaxies will be discovered at such distances within a year.
