Astronomers discover oldest galaxy

This discovery changed scientists’ understanding of the mechanisms by which star clusters form. An international team of astronomers has discovered a giant galaxy in the early universe. It was probably formed 11.5 billion years ago, and the stars it contains formed 1.5 billion years ago (redshift approximately 11). In other words, this happened at a time when enough dark matter halos had not yet formed to form stars. The study was published in the journal Nature. Scientists studied a galaxy called ZF-UDS-7329 with the James Webb Space Telescope and discovered that it harbors a population of stars older than ourselves. And what role dark matter plays in this will be overturned. Temia Nanayakkara, who led the spectral analysis of James Webb’s data, said: “The key questions now are how galaxies form so rapidly in the very early stages of the universe, and what mysterious “The question is: What mechanism could cause star formation in a galaxy to suddenly stop?”

source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07191-9