Thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers racing to find some of the earliest galaxies ever glimpsed have now confirmed that a galaxy first detected last summer is in fact among the earliest ever found. The findings are in the journal Nature. Follow-up observations since first detection of Maisie’s galaxy have revealed that it is from 390 million years after the Big Bang.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has awarded 148 hours of observing time to a group of scientists led by John Chisholm, assistant professor of astronomy at The University of Texas at Austin. He is co-principal investigator on the selected proposal, along with Hakim Atek at the Institut D'Astrophysique de Paris. “That’s over six days on the telescope,” says Chisholm. And only one hour less than the proposal that was awarded the most amount of time.

Keith Hawkins, assistant professor of astronomy at The University of Texas at Austin, has used chemical cartography – also known as chemical mapping – to identify regions of the Milky Way’s spiral arms that have previously gone undetected. His research, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, demonstrates the value of this pioneering technique in understanding the shape, structure, and evolution of our home Galaxy.

This first snapshot of COSMOS-Web contains about 25,000 galaxies — an astonishing number larger than even what sits in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field,” said Caitlin Casey, associate professor of astronomy at The University of Texas at Austin and co-principal investigator of COSMOS-Web.