It has been confirmed that the Maisie Galaxy is the most distant galaxy ever discovered by science

According to a new study published in the scientific journal Nature, a team of scientists describes that it has confirmed the observation of the most distant galaxy discovered by James Webb. The galaxy known as Maisie lies about 390 million years after the Big Bang.; That is, given that the Universe is about 13.7 billion years old, it is very far from Earth.

The galaxy was discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope last year, however, it has only now been confirmed as the most distant galaxy ever observed by humanity. Originally, Maisie was discovered by the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science Survey (CEERS) team in June 2022.

The galaxy distance was confirmed using the redshift phenomenon. A redshift is detected by infrared instruments when the wavelength of light from a distant cosmic body, such as a star or galaxy, extends near the red spectrum of the light.

Scientists note that the Macy’s Galaxy (pictured) is much brighter than current astronomical models predict.source: NASA/STScI/CEERS/TACC/University of Texas at Austin/S. Finkelstein/M. Bagley.

“The interesting thing about Macy’s galaxy is that it was one of the first distant galaxies identified by JWST, and of this group, it was the first really confirmed by spectroscopy,” said University of Austin professor of astronomy, chair of CEERS. Researcher and author of the study Stephen Finkelstein – the scientist named the galaxy after his daughter, as it was discovered on her birthday.

Is Maisy Galaxy is the farthest?

The first analysis estimated that Macy was born 366 million years after the Big Bang, but after analyzing data from the James Webb Telescope, scientists determined that she appeared 390 million years later.

Although considered the most distant confirmed galaxy, Scientists are already assessing ten other galaxies that may have been born a few million years before Macy’s appearance. That is, another similar cosmic body should not take long to expose the address of the most distant galaxy ever discovered by mankind.

The same study analyzed the galaxy CEERS-93316, whose birth was estimated to be about 250 million years after the Big Bang, however, they found to be a billion years away. The observations were confirmed using data collected by JWST’s NIRSpec spectroscopy instrument.

“This was a slightly strange case. Of the dozens of high redshifts observed through spectroscopy, this is the only case where the true redshift is much lower than our initial estimate. It was really hard to explain how the universe could have created such This massive galaxy is very early. So I think that was probably the most likely outcome because it was very intense, very bright, with apparently a high redshift,” Finkelstein added.

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