James Webb Space Telescope Feed Post

NASA’s Webb Proves Galaxies Transformed the Early Universe

Webb is clearing up a space mystery! Early in our cosmic history, gas in the universe shifted — over hundreds of millions of years — from opaque to transparent. Only when the gas became clear did light travel freely through the cosmos. But how did this change happen? Webb proves the answer lies in galaxies from the early universe. Astronomers looked into galaxies so far away that their light took almost 13 billion years to reach us. That made these galaxies the perfect window into what the universe was like about 900 million years after the big bang, just before it became fully transparent. Webb witnessed these galaxies heating up and ionizing the gas around them, turning their surrounding regions transparent. These transparent “bubbles” were about 2 million light-years in radius! Scientists believe the bubbles of transparency eventually grew and merged, creating a transparent universe. Learn more: www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2023/nasa-s-webb-proves-gala... Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Simon Lilly (ETH Zurich), Daichi Kashino (Nagoya University), Jorryt Matthee (ETH Zurich), Christina Eilers (MIT), Rob Simcoe (MIT), Rongmon Bordoloi (North Carolina State University), Ruari Mackenzie (ETH Zurich). Image processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI), Ruari Mackenzie (ETH Zurich) Image description: More than 20,000 tiny galaxies appear across the black background of space. The galaxy colors vary. Some of the smallest galaxies are shades of orange and pink. Most galaxies are so distant they appear as single points of light. Slightly larger, fuzzier galaxies appear whiter. Some have distinct spiral arms. In front of the galaxies are several foreground stars, though none appear larger than the largest galaxies. The foreground stars are scattered around the image, appear blue and have eight prominent diffraction spikes. At the center is a pink object with six diffraction spikes. This is quasar J0100+2802. It appears slightly smaller than the blue foreground stars. Image & Description by NASA