Leiden researchers discover oxygen in the most distant known galaxy
Groundbreaking image: Photo of the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile
Two teams of astronomers, including one from Leiden University, have discovered oxygen in the most distant known galaxy, JADES-GS-z14-0. This groundbreaking discovery shows that galaxies can form much faster in the distant universe than was previously thought.
Light that is 13.4 billion years old
JADES-GS-z14-0 was discovered last year and is the most distant galaxy ever observed. Its light has taken 13.4 billion years to reach us, which means we are seeing it as it was when the universe was less than 300 million years old – around two per cent of its current age.
‘It’s like finding an adolescent in a place where you’d only expect to find babies’
The oxygen was observed with the aid of ALMA, an interferometer in the Atacama Desert in Chile. Finding oxygen indicates that, in chemical terms, the galaxy is much more developed than expected. ‘It’s like finding an adolescent in a place where you’d only expect to find babies’, says Sander Schouws, a PhD candidate at Leiden Observatory. Schouws is the principal author of the research conducted by the Dutch team.
First galaxies formed faster
‘The results show that the galaxy formed really fast and is also maturing fast, which contributes to the mounting suspicion that the formation of the first galaxies was much faster than expected’, he says about the discovery.
Astronomers thought that when it was 300 million years old the universe was still too young to have galaxies containing many heavy elements such as oxygen. The studies show that JADES-GS-z14-0 contains around ten times as many heavy elements as expected. The discovery of oxygen also makes it possible to measure the distance to the galaxy much more accurately.
Synergy between Webb and ALMA
Although the galaxy was originally discovered with the James Webb Space Telescope, ALMA was needed to confirm and accurately determine the great distance of the galaxy. ‘This emphasises the astonishing synergy between ALMA and Webb in the study of the formation and evolution of the first galaxies’, says Leiden University team member Rychard Bouwens.