Astronomers have made a groundbreaking discovery, detecting oxygen in the most distant known galaxy, JADES-GS-z14-0. This record-breaking detection was made possible thanks to the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a telescope array in Chile’s Atacama Desert.
JADES-GS-z14-0 is the most distant confirmed galaxy ever found, with its light taking 13.4 billion years to reach Earth. This means that we are seeing it as it was when the universe was less than 300 million years old, about 2% of its present age.
The new oxygen detection suggests that the galaxy is much more chemically mature than expected. According to Sander Schouws, a Ph.D. candidate at Leiden Observatory, “It’s like finding an adolescent where you would only expect babies.” The results show that the galaxy has formed very rapidly and is also maturing rapidly.
The discovery challenges the long-held assumption that galaxies would be too young to have heavy elements like oxygen at 300 million years old. However, the two ALMA studies indicate that JADES-GS-z14-0 has about 10 times more heavy elements than expected.
This detection not only provides new insights into galaxy formation but also allows astronomers to refine their understanding of distant galaxy properties with greater accuracy. The study published in Astronomy & Astrophysics and accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal offers a unique view on the first phases of galaxy evolution, raising questions about when and how galaxies formed.
The oxygen detection has also enabled precise distance measurements to JADES-GS-z14-0, with an uncertainty of just 0.005%. This level of precision is analogous to being accurate within 5 cm over a distance of 1 km, which helps refine our understanding of distant galaxy properties.
Source: https://phys.org/news/2025-03-oxygen-distant-galaxy.html