PIPING UP AT THE GATES OF DAWN

Summary from the TLDR newsletter

Astronomers have found a galaxy that was already shining with intense starlight when the universe was only 290 million years old. The earliest, most distant galaxy yet found, JADES-GS-z14-0 is one of a string of discoveries enabled by the James Webb Space Telescope that challenge conventional models of how the first stars and galaxies formed. The discovery proves that luminous galaxies were already in place 300 million years after the Big Bang and are more common than what was expected. Galaxy formation models will need to address the existence of such large and luminous galaxies so early in cosmic history.