Skip to main content

NASA's Webb to Uncover Riches of the Early Universe

View Filtered Roman Press Releases View All Roman Press Releases
June 22, 2022 10:00AM (EDT)Release ID: 2022-015
Space field full of colorful galaxies of different sizes and shapes

Summary

Two research teams will use the telescope's powerful instruments to capture and characterize some of the earliest galaxies in the universe. 

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.

Full Article

For decades, telescopes have helped us capture light from galaxies that formed as far back as 400 million years after the big bang – incredibly early in the context of the universe’s 13.8-billion-year history. But what were galaxies like that existed even earlier, when the universe was semi-transparent at the beginning of a period known as the Era of Reionization? NASA’s next flagship observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, is poised to add new riches to our wealth of knowledge not only by capturing images from galaxies that existed as early as the first few hundred million ...

Read More on NASA.gov

Callout: Full Press Release

Visit NASA Science to view the full news release including article text and associated Webb imagery, graphics, scientific visualizations, videos, captions, text descriptions, and other information.

News releases highlighting the discoveries of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope are produced for NASA by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, under NASA Contract NAS5-03127. News release content is developed by the News Team in STScI’s Office of Public Outreach.

End callout
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google

Contact our News Team 

Contact our Outreach Office