NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) found another crowded galaxy 25 million light-years distant.
Researchers estimate GS-9209, the oldest known galaxy, developed 600 to 800 million years after the Big Bang.
“The James Webb Space Telescope has already demonstrated that galaxies were growing larger and earlier than we ever suspected during the first billion years of cosmic history,” stated lead researcher Dr. Adam Carnall of Edinburgh’s School of Physics and Astronomy.
The world’s most costly telescope revealed GS-9209’s characteristics for the first time.
GS-9209, which formed as many stars as our Milky Way 800 million years after the Big Bang, is the first early galaxy to be studied in detail.
The discovery of a huge black hole in this galaxy was a surprise and supports the concept that black holes shut down star formation in early galaxies.
GS-9209 has about as many stars as the Milky Way, while being 10 times smaller.
The Nature research found that their aggregate mass is 40 billion times that of our sun and that they developed swiftly before star creation in GS-9209 ceased.
GS-9209 is the oldest known inactive galaxy.