Astronomers 'Surprised' By Find in Most Distant Known Galaxy

Scientists have detected oxygen in the most distant galaxy ever found, suggesting that early galaxies formed more rapidly than previously thought. The record-breaking discovery, reported by two teams of astronomers in two separate studies, was made via the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). This series of telescopes in Chile's Atacama Desert is operated by an international partnership which includes the European Southern Observatory (ESO). JADES-GS-z14-0—discovered last year via the James Webb Space Telescope, a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency—is the most distant known galaxy. Its light takes a whopping 13.4 billion years to reach us, meaning that we see it at a time when the the universe when it was less than 300 million years old—just some two percent of its present age. Gergö Popping, an ESO astronomer at the European ALMA Regional Centre who was not involved in the studies, said in a statement: "I was really surprised by this clear detection of oxygen in JADES-GS-z14-0. It suggests galaxies can form more rapidly after the Big Bang than had previously been thought. "This result showcases the important role ALMA plays in unraveling the conditions under which the first galaxies in our universe formed."

The discovery marks the furthest detection of oxygen ever made—and challenges what scientists believed about how galaxies evolved in the early universe. "It is like finding an adolescent where you would only expect babies," paper author and astronomer Sander Schouws of the Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands said in a statement. "The results show the galaxy has formed very rapidly and is also maturing rapidly, adding to a growing body of evidence that the formation of galaxies happens much faster than was expected." Galaxies typically begin their lives filled with young stars, which are made mostly of light elements, such as hydrogen and helium. As they evolve, the young stars form heavier elements, such as oxygen, which get dispersed through their host galaxy after they die.

Researchers believed that the universe was still too young at 300 million years of age to have galaxies full of heavy elements. However, the latest studies indicate that JADES-GS-z14-0 is more chemically mature and has around 10 times more heavy elements than expected. The detection of oxygen suggests "a rapid metal enrichment during the earliest phases of galaxy formation," the researchers noted in the study in Astronomy & Astrophysics. JADES-GS-z14-0 was found to be "surprisingly metal-enriched a mere 300 Myr [million years] after the Big Bang" and the detection of "a bright oxygen line" in the galaxy underscores the notion that "galaxies in the early universe undergo rapid evolution," the astronomers explained in the other study in The Astrophysical Journal. "I was astonished by the unexpected results because they opened a new view on the first phases of galaxy evolution," said astrophysicist and paper author Stefano Carniani of the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy in a statement. She added: "Evidence that a galaxy is already mature in the infant universe raises questions about when and how galaxies formed." The detection of oxygen also enabled the researchers to make an "extraordinarily precise" measurement of the distance of JADES-GS-z14-0, down to an uncertainty of just 0.005 percent. "This level of precision—analogous to being accurate within 5 cm over a distance of 1 km —helps refine our understanding of distant galaxy properties," said paper co-author and astrophysicist Eleonora Parlanti, also of the Scuola Normale Superiore, in a statement. Do you have a tip on a science story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about galaxies? Let us know via science@newsweek.com.

References

Carniani, S., D'Eugenio, F., Ji, X., Parlanti, E., Scholtz, J., Sun, F., Venturi, G., Bakx, T. J. L. C., Curti, M., Maiolino, R., Tacchella, S., Zavala, J. A., Hainline, K., Witstok, J., Johnson, B. D., Alberts, S., Bunker, A. J., Charlot, S., Eisenstein, D. J., ... & Willott, C. (2025). The eventful life of a luminous galaxy at z = 14: metal enrichment, feedback, and low gas fraction? Astronomy & Astrophysics. http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202452451 Schouws, S., Bouwens, R. J., Ormerod, K., Smit, R., Algera, H., Sommovigo, L., Hodge, J., Ferrara, A., Oesch, P. A., Rowland, L. E., van Leeuwen, I., Stefanon, M., Herard-Demanche, T., Fudamoto, Y., Röttgering, H., & van der Werf, P. (2025). Detection of [OIII]_88µm in JADES-GS-z14-0 at z=14.1793. Astrophysical Journal.