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Astronomers Discovered a 'Cosmic Fossil' in the Making—the Most Chemically Primitive Galaxy Seen Yet—by Peering Back to the Edge of Time
Key takeaways
- Eli Stark-Elster | AAAS Mass Media Fellow
- Once, astronomers lacked telescopes powerful enough to observe the far-off and ancient regions of deep space where the formation of heavy elements began.
- The new data hails from LAP1-B, a galaxy that dates to just 800 million years after the universe began.
Eli Stark-Elster | AAAS Mass Media Fellow
Add as preferred source Astronomers used galaxy cluster MACS J0416 (background), as a magnifying glass to view the extremely faint galaxy LAP1-B (inset), which is visualized here based on the James Webb Space Telescope s infrared data. © NASA, ESA, CSA & K. Nakajima et al., Nature For the first few hundred million years after the Big Bang, the primordial universe was draped in clouds of hydrogen and helium. Heavier elements—like carbon and oxygen, which form some of life’s basic building blocks—emerged only after those clouds fused together within the hearts of early stars.
Once, astronomers lacked telescopes powerful enough to observe the far-off and ancient regions of deep space where the formation of heavy elements began. But the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope enables them to capture the light that emanated from these stellar forges billions of years ago. According to a paper published last month in Nature, researchers have now captured traces of the most chemically primitive galaxy yet.