Oxygen found in galaxy 300 million years post-Big Bang

Astronomers have found oxygen in the most distant known galaxy, named JADES-GS-z14-0. This galaxy existed just 300 million years after the Big Bang. The discovery was made using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope. JADES-GS-z14-0, discovered in 2024, is the farthest confirmed galaxy. Its light has traveled 13.4 billion years to reach Earth. Scientists expected very few heavy elements in the early universe, but this galaxy contains more oxygen than they anticipated. This suggests that galaxies formed and evolved much faster than previously thought. The results come from two independent research teams. They provided more accurate measurements of the galaxy's distance, changing how scientists think about galaxy evolution. The collaboration between ALMA and the James Webb Space Telescope has been crucial in these findings. Researchers believe this discovery could change our understanding of how galaxies formed and developed in the early universe.