The universe was a very different place for several hundred million years after the big bang. It wasn’t yet transparent like it is today – neutral gas made it semi-opaque. This is a period when the first galaxies in the universe were beginning to form. Telescopes have spotted many distant galaxies – but none earlier than 400 million years after the big bang. What were galaxies that existed even earlier like? Two research teams using the James Webb Space Telescope will wield its state-of-the-art instruments to reveal an untold number of details about this early period in the universe for the first time – and revise what we know about some of the earliest chapters of galaxy evolution.