00:00 [Music]
00:04 The James Webb Space Telescope first turned its highly attuned telescopic eye
00:08 into deep space last year, giving us some incredible images of the early days of the universe.
00:12 Now it has looked back even further, and it has identified the
00:16 earliest galaxies ever witnessed. And that light is so old, we might
00:20 actually be seeing them form in real time. Researchers in Denmark
00:24 have been analyzing the data for a while, finding that the proportion of heavy elements to
00:28 stars in these fledgling galaxies is off. They only have a quarter of what would be
00:32 expected of these crucial chemicals. Numbers that astronomers have repeatedly found
00:36 are relatively constant in galaxies throughout the last 12 billion years.
00:40 Which is why these galaxies are now believed to have not gone through enough star production
00:44 and star demise yet, meaning they are likely still forming. However, while
00:48 these findings are perhaps a surprise, what astronomers are actually witnessing occur in real
00:52 time isn't. Theoretical models actually predict it happening exactly
00:56 like this, with the researchers writing, "The result gives us the first
01:00 insight into the earliest stages of galaxy formation, which appear to be more
01:04 intimately connected with the gas in between the galaxies than we thought." Adding that this
01:08 is the James Webb Telescope's first observation related to galactic formation,
01:12 and more observations will likely reveal even more in the future.
01:16 [music]
01:20 (upbeat music)
Comments