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.

A new discovery captures the cosmic moment when a galaxy cluster – among the largest structures in the universe – started to assemble only about a billion years after the big bang, one or two billion years earlier than previously thought. This result, made using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and James Webb Space Telescope, will … Continue reading NASA Telescopes Spot Surprisingly Mature Cluster in Early Universe