The Most Distant Known Galaxy Already Had Oxygen

One of the surprising discoveries of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is that galaxies formed very early in the Universe. JWST has discovered about two dozen galaxies at a redshift of around z = 14, meaning that we see them at a time when the cosmos was just 300-500 million years old. The most distant galaxy, JADES-GS-z14-0, is seen at an age of less than 300 million years. All of these galaxies are rich with stars and have a basic structure similar to what we see in more modern galaxies. This discovery challenged our understanding of galactic evolution. Now a new discovery challenges it even further.