NASA Telescopes Spot Surprisingly Mature Cluster in Early Universe

This image represents the discovery of what may be the most distant protocluster, or developing galaxy cluster, ever found. The white box in the main version marks the field of view of Chandra X-ray Observatory data (blue) that are overlaid on an infrared image from the James Webb Space Telescope. Together, these data reveal the presence of a forming cluster, called JADES-1, just one to two billion years after the big bang. Up until now, most ideas about how the formation of galaxy clusters — the largest structures known to be held together by gravity — predict that they could not reach this stage until about two to three billion years after the universe started.