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January 28, 2026<\/p>\n
2 min read<\/p>\n
Add Us On Google<\/span>Add SciAm<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n JWST spots most distant galaxy ever, pushing the limits of the observable universe<\/p>\n The galaxy MoM-z14 could offer clues to what the universe looked like in its early infancy<\/p>\n By Jackie Flynn Mogensen edited by Claire Cameron<\/span><\/p>\n The farthest galaxy ever detected, MoM-z14.<\/p>\n NASA\/ESA\/CSA\/STScI\/Rohan Naidu\/M.I.T. (image); Joseph DePasquale\/STScI (image processing)<\/p>\n In a galaxy far, far away, there lie clues to the cosmic dawn\u2014the first few hundreds of millions of years in our 13.8-billion-year-old universe\u2019s early history. On Wednesday astronomers on announced that a bright galaxy called MoM-z14 that was found using NASA\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is the farthest yet detected, existing just 280 million years after the big bang.<\/p>\n \u201cWith Webb, we are able to see farther than humans ever have before, and it looks nothing like what we predicted, which is both challenging and exciting,\u201d said Rohan Naidu, an astronomer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the lead author of a preprint paper detailing MoM-z14\u2019s discovery that will soon be published in the overlay journal Open Journal of Astrophysics, in a statement in NASA\u2019s announcement.<\/p>\n The galaxy, the light of which has taken more than 13 billion years to reach our telescopes, is brighter, denser and more chemically rich than astronomers had expected, according to NASA.<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n To pinpoint galaxies like MoM-z14, astronomers use redshift. Essentially, this is the measure of how stretched the light coming from an object is as a result of that object moving away from our perspective as the universe expands. The higher the redshift, the farther the object is. In MoM-z14\u2019s case, it has a redshift of 14.4\u2014a record, Scientific American columnist Phil Plait noted late last year.<\/p>\n But records are made to be broken. And NASA said it fully expects this new JWST achievement to be surpassed in the not-too-distant future as its observations improve.<\/p>\n Regardless, MoM-z14 could offer new clues to the early universe, including, for instance, why it and other early galaxies are so bright.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s an incredibly exciting time, with Webb revealing the early universe like never before,\u201d said Yijia Li, a Pennsylvania State University graduate student, who also contributed to the research, in the same statement, \u201cand showing us how much there still is to discover.\u201d<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. Scientific American<\/span> has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been a Scientific American<\/span> subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm <\/span>always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/span>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.<\/p>\n There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" January 28, 2026 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm JWST spots most distant galaxy ever, pushing the limits of the observable universe The galaxy MoM-z14 could offer clues to what the universe looked like in its early infancy By Jackie Flynn Mogensen edited by Claire Cameron The farthest galaxy ever detected, MoM-z14. NASA\/ESA\/CSA\/STScI\/Rohan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43030,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[1691,1879,8155,665,22575,7794,8156,1179],"class_list":{"0":"post-43029","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-distant","9":"tag-galaxy","10":"tag-jwst","11":"tag-limits","12":"tag-observable","13":"tag-pushing","14":"tag-spots","15":"tag-universe"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}On supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n
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