Oxygen Found in a Galaxy Just 300 Million Years After the Big Bang

Astronomers have detected oxygen in the most distant galaxy ever observed, JADES-GS-z14-0, shaking up our understanding of how quickly galaxies formed after the Big Bang.

The find suggests this galaxy matured far faster than expected, becoming chemically rich just 300 million years after the Universe began. The discovery, made with the ALMA telescope, also provided extremely precise distance measurements and highlighted how tools like ALMA and JWST are revolutionizing our view of the early cosmos.

Record-Breaking Oxygen Discovery in Distant Galaxy

Two separate teams of astronomers have detected oxygen in the most distant known galaxy, JADES-GS-z14-0. The discovery, reported in two independent studies, was made possible by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a powerful telescope in Chile’s Atacama Desert, in which the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is a partner. This record-breaking find is prompting scientists to rethink how quickly galaxies formed in the early Universe.

JADES-GS-z14-0, discovered in 2024, is the most distant confirmed galaxy ever observed. Its light has traveled 13.4 billion years to reach us, meaning we see it as it was when the Universe was less than 300 million years old, only about 2% of its current age. The new ALMA observations show the presence of oxygen, suggesting that the galaxy is far more chemically developed than scientists expected for such an early time in cosmic history.

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers have detected oxygen in JADES-GS-z14-0, the most distant galaxy known so far. This is the earliest detection of oxygen yet, and it’s very intriguing. How did galaxies evolve fast enough to get enriched with heavy elements like oxygen so early on? Credit: ESO

Peering into the Infant Universe

“It is like finding an adolescent where you would only expect babies,” says Sander Schouws, a PhD candidate at Leiden Observatory, the Netherlands, and first author of the Dutch-led study, now accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. “The results show the galaxy has formed very rapidly and is also maturing rapidly, adding to a growing body of evidence that the formation of galaxies happens much faster than was expected.”

Galaxies usually start their lives full of young stars, which are made mostly of light elements like hydrogen and helium. As stars evolve, they create heavier elements like oxygen, which get dispersed through their host galaxy after they die. Researchers had thought that, at 300 million years old, the Universe was still too young to have galaxies ripe with heavy elements. However, the two ALMA studies indicate JADES-GS-z14-0 has about 10 times more heavy elements than expected.

This artist’s animation shows JADES-GS-z14-0, the most-distant galaxy confirmed to date. We see this galaxy as it was when the Universe was less than 300 million years old, about 2% of its present age. Such galaxies were thought to be too young to be ripe with heavy elements, but the discovery of oxygen by two teams of astronomers suggest this is not the case. Instead, as this recreation shows, JADES-GS-z14-0 must have had multiple generations of stars being born and dying as supernovae, producing and leaving behind heavy elements like oxygen. This element has now been detected thanks to the extreme sensitivity of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), operated by ESO and its international partners. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

Rethinking Galaxy Evolution Timelines

“I was astonished by the unexpected results because they opened a new view on the first phases of galaxy evolution,” says Stefano Carniani, of the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, Italy, and lead author on the paper now accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics. “The evidence that a galaxy is already mature in the infant Universe raises questions about when and how galaxies formed.”

The oxygen detection has also allowed astronomers to make their distance measurements to JADES-GS-z14-0 much more accurate. “The ALMA detection offers an extraordinarily precise measurement of the galaxy’s distance down to an uncertainty of just 0.005 percent. This level of precision — analogous to being accurate within 5 cm over a distance of 1 km — helps refine our understanding of distant galaxy properties,” adds Eleonora Parlanti, a PhD student at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa and author on the Astronomy & Astrophysics study.^[1]

ALMA and JWST: A Powerful Duo

“While the galaxy was originally discovered with the James Webb Space Telescope, it took ALMA to confirm and precisely determine its enormous distance,”^[2] says Associate Professor Rychard Bouwens, a member of the team at Leiden Observatory. “This shows the amazing synergy between ALMA and JWST to reveal the formation and evolution of the first galaxies.”

Gergö Popping, an ESO astronomer at the European ALMA Regional Centre who did not take part in the studies, says: “I was really surprised by this clear detection of oxygen in JADES-GS-z14-0. It suggests galaxies can form more rapidly after the Big Bang than had previously been thought. This result showcases the important role ALMA plays in unraveling the conditions under which the first galaxies in our Universe formed.”

This video zooms into the galaxy JADES-GS-z14-0, the most distant galaxy confirmed to date. Thanks to Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a telescope operated by ESO and its international partners, astronomers have now uncovered the presence of a surprising element after examining its light spectrum: oxygen. The presence of heavy elements like oxygen suggests that the formation of these early galaxies happened much faster than we thought, which must have had multiple generations of stars being born and dying.

Notes

1. Astronomers use a measurement known as redshift to determine the distance to extremely distant objects. Previous measurements indicated that the galaxy JADES-GS-z-14-0 was at a redshift between about 14.12 and 14.4. With their oxygen detections, both teams have now narrowed this down to a redshift around 14.18.
2. The James Webb Space Telescope is a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

Reference: “The eventful life of a luminous galaxy at z=14: metal enrichment, feedback, and low gas fraction?” by Stefano Carniani, Francesco D’Eugenio, Xihan Ji, Eleonora Parlanti, Jan Scholtz, Fengwu Sun, Giacomo Venturi, J.L.C. Tom Bakx, Mirko Curti, Roberto Maiolino, Sandro Tacchella, A. Jorge Zavala, Kevin Hainline, Joris Witstok, D. Benjamin Johnson, Stacey Alberts, J. Andrew Bunker, Stéphane Charlot, J. Daniel Eisenstein, M. Jakob Helton, Peter Jakobsen, Nimisha Kumari, Brant Robertson, Aayush Saxena, Hannah “Ubler, C. Christina Williams, N.A. Christopher Willmer and Chris Willott, 14 March 2025, Astronomy & Astrophysics.
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202452451

The teams are composed of:

Italian-led, Astronomy & Astrophysics paper: Stefano Carniani (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy [SNS]), Francesco D’Eugenio (Kavli Institute for Cosmology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK [CAM-KIC]; Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK [CAM-CavL] and INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, Milano, Italy), Xihan Ji (CAM-KIC and CAM-CavL), Eleonora Parlanti (SNS), Jan Scholtz (CAM-KIC and CAM-CavL), Fengwu Sun (Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, Cambridge, USA [CfA]), Giacomo Venturi (SNS), Tom J. L. C. Bakx (Department of Space, Earth, & Environment, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden), Mirko Curti (European Southern Observatory, Garching bei München, Germany), Roberto Maiolino (CAM-KIC, CAM-CavL and Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, London, UK [UCL]), Sandro Tacchella (CAM-KIC and CAM-CavL), Jorge A. Zavala (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Tokyo, Japan), Kevin Hainline (Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, Tucson, USA [UArizona-SO]), Joris Witstok (Cosmic Dawn Center, Copenhagen, Denmark [DAWN] and CAM-CavL), Benjamin D. Johnson [CfA], Stacey Alberts [UArizona-SO], Andrew J. Bunker (Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK [Oxford]), Stéphane Charlot (Sorbonne Université, CNRS, Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, Paris, France), Daniel J. Eisenstein (CfA), Jakob M. Helton (UArizona-SO), Peter Jakobsen (DAWN and Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark), Nimisha Kumari (Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, USA), Brant Robertson (Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics University of California, Santa Cruz, USA), Aayush Saxena (Oxford and UCL), Hannah Übler (CAM-KIC and CAM-CavL), Christina C. Williams (NSF NOIRLab, Tucson, USA), Christopher N. A. Willmer (UArizona-SO) and Chris Willott (NRC Herzberg, Victoria, Canada).

Dutch-led, The Astrophysical Journal paper: Sander Schouws (Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands [Leiden]), Rychard J. Bouwens (Leiden), Katherine Ormerod (Astrophysics Research Institute, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, United Kingdom [LJMU]), Renske Smit (LJMU), Hiddo Algera (Hiroshima Astrophysical Science Center, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan and National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Tokyo, Japan), Laura Sommovigo (Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute, New York, USA), Jacqueline Hodge (Leiden), Andrea Ferrara (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy), Pascal A. Oesch (Département d’Astronomie, Université de Genève, Versoix, Switzerland; Cosmic Dawn Center, Copenhagen, Denmark and Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark), Lucie E. Rowland (Leiden), Ivana van Leeuwen (Leiden), Mauro Stefanon (Leiden), Thomas Herard-Demanche (Leiden), Yoshinobu Fudamoto (Center for Frontier Science, Chiba University, Chiba, Japan), Huub Rottgering (Leiden) and Paul van der Werf (Leiden).

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