Oxygen has been discovered at the edge of time! 🌌
Astronomers are once again being forced to rethink the timeline of the early universe, thanks to a groundbreaking discovery by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
A distant galaxy, named JADES-GS-z14-0, has been found to contain an unexpectedly high concentration of oxygen, despite forming just 300 million years after the Big Bang. This finding challenges long-held beliefs about when and how heavy elements first appeared in the cosmos.
In the earliest stages of the universe, shortly after the Big Bang, only hydrogen and helium existed. Heavier elements like oxygen are created inside stars through nuclear fusion and are spread into the surrounding space when those stars explode as supernovae. The presence of oxygen in JADES-GS-z14-0 means that multiple generations of stars must have formed, lived, and died extremely quickly—a process previously thought to take much longer.
The amount of oxygen detected in this galaxy is especially astonishing: it contains ten times more heavy elements than models predict for galaxies of this age. This suggests that JADES-GS-z14-0 didn’t just appear early—it evolved rapidly, reaching a level of maturity that defies current cosmological theories. Not only is it rich in heavy elements, but it's also surprisingly large and bright, further complicating efforts to explain how it formed so quickly in the young universe.
This discovery has serious implications. It suggests that the early universe was far more active and complex than previously believed. If galaxies like JADES-GS-z14-0 were forming and evolving this quickly, our current models of galaxy formation and cosmic evolution may be missing key processes or underestimating the speed at which they occur.
Astronomers now face new and pressing questions: How did so much oxygen form so early? How many other ancient galaxies are hiding similar secrets? And what does this mean for our understanding of the universe’s first billion years?
📄 RESEARCH PAPERS
📌Sander Schouws et al., "Detection of [OIII]88μm in JADES-GS-z14-0 at z=14.1793", arxiv (2025)
📌Stefano Carniani et al., "The eventful life of a luminous galaxy at z = 14: metal enrichment, feedback, and low gas fraction?", arxiv (2025)
