NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was exploring Cosmic Dawn when it spotted the most distant galaxy, named JADES-GS-z14-0, which we have ever seen. 

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Cosmic Dawn is the period in the first few hundred million years after the Big Bang when the first galaxies were born. JADES-GS-z14-0 is located about 13.5 billion light-years away as its light has taken billions of years to reach us. 

Now, new observations have revealed that JADES-GS-z14-0, detected in 2024, is rich in oxygen, which has stunned the scientists as they had thought elements heavier than hydrogen and helium weren't around in significant quantities until much later in time. 

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Analysing JADES-GS-z14-0 provides scientists with valuable insights into the early universe's formation and evolution. Its properties and behaviour can help scientists understand how galaxies formed and evolved in the early universe. 

The results were published by two teams separately, one in peer-reviewed research, which was published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics on March 20, 2025. The other team published their peer-reviewed results on the same day in The Astrophysical Journal. 

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The presence of oxygen suggests that the early Universe matured more quickly than we thought possible. Young stars, which are primarily composed of light elements like hydrogen and helium, are typically the first stars to form in galaxies. 

After they die, heavier elements like oxygen, which are produced by evolving stars, are released into their host galaxy. 

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'I was astonished...'

Scientists believed the Universe was still too young to contain galaxies that were rich in heavy elements 300 million years ago. However, the recent findings show that JADES-GS-z14-0 has around ten times as many heavy elements as anticipated. 

"It is like finding an adolescent where you would only expect babies. The results show the galaxy has formed very rapidly and is also maturing rapidly, adding to a growing body of evidence that the formation of galaxies happens much faster than was expected," cosmologist Sander Schouws of Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands said as quoted by media reports. 

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"I was astonished by the unexpected results because they opened a new view on the first phases of galaxy evolution," said Stefano Carniani, of the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, Italy, and lead author on the paper now accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

"The evidence that a galaxy is already mature in the infant Universe raises questions about when and how galaxies formed," Carniani added. 

(With inputs from agencies)