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First Actively Forming Galaxy as Lightweight as Young Milky Way

For the first time, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has detected and “weighed” a galaxy that not only existed around 600 million years after the big bang, but is also similar to what our Milky Way galaxy’s mass might have been at the same stage of development. Other galaxies Webb has detected at this time […]

“Without the benefit of this gravitational lens, we would not be able to resolve this galaxy,” said Kartheik Iyer, co-lead author and NASA Hubble Fellow at Columbia University in New York. Mowla, who spotted the galaxy in Webb’s image, was drawn to its gleaming star clusters, because objects that sparkle typically indicate they are extremely clumpy and complicated. Those colors in Webb’s images and its supporting spectra confirmed that star formation didn’t happen all at once in this galaxy, but was staggered in time.

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