The stunning deep space photo was taken by the James Webb Space Telescope in April 2025 and ‘pushes the boundaries of the observable universe’ in an unpredictable way
Nasa has revealed a mind-blowing image of the most distant galaxy ever seen that takes us closer to the Big Bang like never before. The galaxy, called MoM-z14, was snapped by the James Webb Space Telescope in April last year.
Scientists first revealed the discovery in 2025, but the research has now been peer-reviewed and published, with Nasa confirming the find in a new statement. The US space agency reckons the image pushes the “boundaries of the observable universe” even nearer to the Big Bang.
“With 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,” said lead author Rohan Naidu, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
MoM-z14 is so far away that looking at it is like travelling back in time by billions of years and raises the question of alien life form possibly being somewhere in it. The galaxy is seen as it was just 280 million years after the Big Bang, which took place 13.8 billion years ago.
“Due to the expansion of the universe that is driven by dark energy, discussion of physical distances and ‘years ago’ becomes tricky when looking this far,” Nasa explained. They added: “Using Webb’s NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) instrument, astronomers confirmed that MoM-z14 has a cosmological redshift of 14.44.
“Meaning that its light has been travelling through (expanding) space, being stretched and ‘shifted’ to longer, redder wavelengths, for about 13.5 of the universe’s estimated 13.8 billion years of existence.” Nasa says MoM-z14 is part of a group of surprisingly bright early-universe galaxies and contains unusually high amounts of nitrogen.
“We can take a page from archeology and look at these ancient stars in our own galaxy like fossils from the early universe,” Naidu explained. “Except in astronomy we are lucky enough to have Webb seeing so far that we also have direct information about galaxies during that time.
“It turns out we are seeing some of the same features, like this unusual nitrogen enrichment.” In theory, there shouldn’t have been enough time for generations of stars to produce high amounts of nitrogen in the 280 million years between the Big Bang and the moment captured by the image.
However, scientists believed that the density of the early universe led to supermassive stars capable of producing more nitrogen than stars we see today. Nasa hopes to look even further back with Webb and the upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which is due to launch as early as late 2026.
Research team member Yijia Li, of Pennsylvania State University, said: “To figure out what is going on in the early universe, we really need more information. More detailed observations with Webb, and more galaxies to see where the common features are, which Roman will be able to provide.
“It’s an incredibly exciting time, with Webb revealing the early universe like never before. And showing us how much there still is to discover.”
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