Unexpected, Bright Hydrogen Emission Caught Astronomers by Surprise
In the early universe, space was filled with a dense fog of neutral hydrogen gas. Although the first stars and galaxies gave off powerful ultraviolet light, much of that light was trapped by the surrounding hydrogen. It wasn’t until hundreds of millions of years later that this fog gradually cleared, when the hydrogen atoms became ionized, freeing light to travel across the cosmos.
Astronomers call this pivotal period the era of reionization, and they’re still working to understand how and when it unfolded. Now, a newly discovered galaxy is offering a surprising clue. Known as JADES-GS-z13-1, it existed just 330 million years after the Big Bang and is emitting bright hydrogen radiation. This type of light, known as Lyman-alpha emission, should have been blocked by the thick hydrogen fog still present at that time. The fact that it’s visible is puzzling scientists, who are now rethinking how quickly the universe may have cleared.
Webb Space Telescope Sees Galaxy Mysteriously Clearing Fog of Early Universe
Thanks to the powerful infrared capabilities of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, scientists are able to study some of the earliest galaxies in the universe. In a surprising discovery, an international team of astronomers has detected bright hydrogen emission from a galaxy that existed much earlier than expected. The finding is raising new questions about how light could have escaped the dense fog of neutral hydrogen that filled the early universe.
Discovery of a Distant Galaxy: JADES-GS-z13-1
The galaxy, named JADES-GS-z13-1, was spotted in images captured by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) as part of the James Webb Space Telescope Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES). It appears to have existed just 330 million years after the Big Bang. Researchers initially estimated its distance, based on how much the galaxy’s light had been stretched by the expansion of space,using its brightness in various infrared filters.
The NIRCam data suggested a redshift of 12.9. To confirm this extreme distance, a team led by Joris Witstok of the University of Cambridge, along with colleagues from the Cosmic Dawn Center and the University of Copenhagen, used Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) to study the galaxy in more detail.
Unexpected Hydrogen Emission Stuns Astronomers
In the resulting spectrum, the redshift was confirmed to be 13.0. This equates to a galaxy seen just 330 million years after the Big Bang, a small fraction of the universe’s present age of 13.8 billion years old. But an unexpected feature stood out as well: one specific, distinctly bright wavelength of light, known as Lyman-alpha emission radiated by hydrogen atoms. This emission was far stronger than astronomers thought possible at this early stage in the universe’s development.
“The early universe was bathed in a thick fog of neutral hydrogen,” explained Roberto Maiolino, a team member from the University of Cambridge and University College London. “Most of this haze was lifted in a process called reionization, which was completed about one billion years after the Big Bang. GS-z13-1 is seen when the universe was only 330 million years old, yet it shows a surprisingly clear, telltale signature of Lyman-alpha emission that can only be seen once the surrounding fog has fully lifted. This result was totally unexpected by theories of early galaxy formation and has caught astronomers by surprise.”
Light Escaping Against the Odds
Before and during the era of reionization, the immense amounts of neutral hydrogen fog surrounding galaxies blocked any energetic ultraviolet light they emitted, much like the filtering effect of colored glass. Until enough stars had formed and were able to ionize the hydrogen gas, no such light — including Lyman-alpha emission — could escape from these fledgling galaxies to reach Earth. The confirmation of Lyman-alpha radiation from this galaxy, therefore, has great implications for our understanding of the early universe.
Rethinking Cosmic Evolution
“We really shouldn’t have found a galaxy like this, given our understanding of the way the universe has evolved,” said Kevin Hainline, a team member from the University of Arizona. “We could think of the early universe as shrouded with a thick fog that would make it exceedingly difficult to find even powerful lighthouses peeking through, yet here we see the beam of light from this galaxy piercing the veil. This fascinating emission line has huge ramifications for how and when the universe reionized.”
Possible Origins of the Light Signal
The source of the Lyman-alpha radiation from this galaxy is not yet known, but may include the first light from the earliest generation of stars to form in the universe. “The large bubble of ionized hydrogen surrounding this galaxy might have been created by a peculiar population of stars — much more massive, hotter and more luminous than stars formed at later epochs, and possibly representative of the first generation of stars,” said Witstok. A powerful active galactic nucleus, driven by one of the first supermassive black holes, is another possibility identified by the team.
This research was published on March 26 in the journal Nature.
Reference: “Witnessing the onset of reionization through Lyman-α emission at redshift 13” by Joris Witstok, Peter Jakobsen, Roberto Maiolino, Jakob M. Helton, Benjamin D. Johnson, Brant E. Robertson, Sandro Tacchella, Alex J. Cameron, Renske Smit, Andrew J. Bunker, Aayush Saxena, Fengwu Sun, Stacey Alberts, Santiago Arribas, William M. Baker, Rachana Bhatawdekar, Kristan Boyett, Phillip A. Cargile, Stefano Carniani, Stéphane Charlot, Jacopo Chevallard, Mirko Curti, Emma Curtis-Lake, Francesco D’Eugenio, Daniel J. Eisenstein, Kevin N. Hainline, Gareth C. Jones, Nimisha Kumari, Michael V. Maseda, Pablo G. Pérez-González, Pierluigi Rinaldi, Jan Scholtz, Hannah Übler, Christina C. Williams, Christopher N. A. Willmer, Chris Willott and Yongda Zhu, 26 March 2025, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-08779-5
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s leading space science observatory, designed to explore the universe in unprecedented detail. Launched through an international collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), Webb is uncovering new insights across a wide range of cosmic frontiers. From investigating planets in our solar system to studying distant exoplanets, and from exploring the earliest galaxies to probing the structure and origins of the universe itself, Webb is transforming our understanding of the cosmos and our place within it.
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55 Comments
You guys are fools. This planet and universe was created for mankind. We can send you to school but we can’t make you think. Only a fool would say in his heart there is no God. The heavens declare God’s handiwork.
You actually believe UFOs come from other planets? They are fallen angels and demons. Read the Bible. Read the book of Daniel. He prophecies exactly when Christ is born.
Wow I totally agree with you. I couldn’t have said it better myself. Thank you for that. 😊
Stone the crows! Nit-wittery at its finest, eh?
Cor blimey! A post right out the Bronze Age, somebody who believes in nigh on 3,500 year old, Abrahamic, nit-wittery about demons, angels & boogie monsters no doubt, which abounded in full in the minds of simple human beings yet to discover the scientific method of evaluating evidence. Back in the Bronze Age many claimed to have had encounters with such mumbo-jumbo creatures but as more & more people have become enlightened the presence of angels flapping their wings around the place became rarer & rarer & not too many folks encounter those visages these days, unless they’ve been drinking or smoking things they shouldn’t. As most humans have mentally moved forward from those dark ages, it’s bizarre to find that some people still cling to long discredited ideas.
Do you believe in Santa Claus Donna, and if no, why not?
What a load of fantasy garbage. The big bang never happened. Almost everything you think you know about the universe is wrong. The heavens declare the glory of God.
This coming from a man who believes the earth was created 7 to 8 thousand years ago, with just one man and one woman. Back in your hole man with limited thaught and a small mind!
The reason it is visible is that the theory doesn’t hold water. Instead of scrapping the theory, go double down because creation must be refused at any cost othwise admittance of the Bible as true will have to be faced and the repercussions of sin acknowledged.
Jesus is really Lord above all. LPGA
those who are the simple minded stuck in a box scared to explore the idea it is when religion and science agree is where you find the truth God is the word chosen for the creator Time is the creator traveling at the speed of light The light is what shines through the darkness is where reality gets lost
All efforts made in sience is indeed leading to the fact that there is a very intelligent deity that caused everything we know and observe in our universe.
I like to revere that deity as “God” and it is clearing that he has a plan or meaning why we are here.
The bible explains a part of this, but it hasn’t giving me the full prove of it all.
To be,or not to be,that is the question.
To have been, or not to have been, that was the answer 😅
🤣
Bangers, mate.
Everyone one is entitled to an opinion, there is no proof of what you talk about, just like all this talk about the so called big bang. I believe there is a creator of all things but he does not influence us, and I don’t believe we are the only being in this vast galaxy and universe
You’re out of your element, Donna. The reality is, you’re intellectually less fortunate (a fool), incapable to grasp the complexity and progress of modern day science, and in anger, end up salivating same old stories about god, demons, and angels. Lame and extremely sad.
My take on the Old Testament is that a good deal of it is propaganda written after the fact to justify religious bigotry supporting child-murder, genocide, and ethnic cleansing. That is, proponents of such crimes were only obeying God’s orders, a justification disputed by the majority of the judges at the Nuremburg War Crimes Trials back around 1947-1948.
They are fools, you’re right, but no more foolish than those that think a god of some sort made it all.
First paragraph… after the big bang was discovered… bla bla bla.
The so called big bang is an unproven theory dreamed up by and supported from the imaginations of complete and utter fools who’d say anything for brainwash grant money.
Write about something that actually has some basis in fact.
What Big Bang?! Fools! God created the heavens and the earth. The earth is His footstool. Amen!
I honestly didn’t know people could be this delusional and stupid but lesson learned. I guess you don’t let facts stand in a way of a good story.
After you complete a Ph.D in Astrophysics , then come back and respond.
Dr Michael Fuchs
Robert Lee, thank you!
You may believe in magic agency that we know doesn’t exist or in “UFOs”, but we don’t have to.
We have evidence that organized superstition notions of magic agency is erroneous. As of 2016 the second Planck observatory data release tested robustly and beyond reasonable doubt that the entirely natural process that produces all of the universe is space expansion. That leaves no room for magic.
Amen to that!! Science is continually trying to disprove the existence of God, but each time, all they end up doing to proving His existence.
Wow Donna. Just, wow.
Really, Donna?
Science doesn’t care what you believe. 🤷🏻♂️
This is quite true.!! Loved the comment.
If Science is the study of observed material fact, then how can the existence of a God be proven?
It has been tested as erroneous, see my response to Donna misleading and defamatory comment on what others believe or have to believe.
People…please do not question thee one and only … I humbly request of you to just look at your self in the mirror n tell me that you were just happens to be here cuase of the birds and the bees…tho who has been before time itself and is still , will forever be
There is a reason Jesus never mentions bacteria. It is because the character is based on pagan fiction and has nothing to do with reality.
Find a copy of Pontius Pilate’s diary/records. It’s in the library of Congress so it is accepted as an historical document.
He documents Jesus Christ in official Roman records.
100 percent wrong we were most definitely created but not by this thing you call god. 🤦🏼
We can and better question everything, as science show us is beneficial. It is easy to question what is obviously man made tales.
I always felt universe is justa metaverse for psychic understanding . The intrigue truth that abide universe over billions of years has so distinct identity that we are churning path to so called babyverse that itself defy the very existing of universe. This is nothing but nothing in the universe existed far beyond the nithingness
I love science. And we are fortunate that we are able to know our Universe – No other creature on earth can do that. I can’t wait for further research and analysis to provide a reasonable consistent theory or how this light is actually being generated, and we are able to see it across the known universe. But, I hate to break the news to some of the responders – there’s no such thig as Superman, Batman, Gree Lantern, or Wonder Woman. There are no magical entities with supernatural powers. But here’s a question for these folks – 1 Commandment = Have no other Gods before me! I guess there are other gods. wonder how many? Maybe Zeus, Poseidon, and Athena are real but inferior.
And here, my friends, we see the effects of woefully inadequate science education in America. I would wager that Ms. Garrison has no familiarity with The Doppler Effect, Red Shift, the Hubble Constant, how all heavier elements are formed in the fusion core and end-of-stellar-life explosions if stars, etc., etc , etc.
The Renaissance, Age of Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution are largely lost on those who still embrace Holy Scripture as History and Science Textbooks.
In the absence of understanding of *how* Science works, they fill the gaps in their knowledge with “God, the Cosmic Magician” who pulls planets, star systems, and galaxies, the periodic table, cells, and all life out of His (remember, *always male*!) metaphorical hat.
Lest you mislabel me, I have great respect for the Gospel of Peace, Reconciliation, and Renewal of the Spirit preached by Yeshua, Carpenter of Nazareth. If more people lived by the principles he preached, we would welcome the stranger, heal the sick, feed the hungry, lift up the oppressed and despised, and reject the liar, the bragard, the billionaires who pull money away from the needful, so the rich can grow richer. Instead, far too many “Donnas” flock to the religious and political preachers fear who promise them safety,… that they cannot, in truth, provide.
Teaching Science is not “indoctrination”, it is teaching the young (and the not so young) how we have come to know what we know — and still do not know — about the physical universe. Indoctrination is teaching *one* religious orthodoxy as ~the only Truth~, even though all other religions decry their competitors as deceptions and lies perpetrated by servants of Evil to mislead and destroy those who reject The One Truth (…as they teach it).
Science believes in evidence, logic, and an inherent willingness to modify one’s perceptions and opinions when evidence exposes the inadequacies of the status quo. Religious faith (regardless of which faith) typically demands absolute and unwavering allegiance, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. Ms. Garrison simply gives voice to this circumscribed view of reality. *And she may well be right!*
That a principal difference between faith and Science. Faith can admit no departure from Received Truth. Science *seeks* to disprove its own hypotheses, and when the evidence (to a “six sigma” certainty — another concept foreign to most Americans) aligns with the operative paradigm, honest scientists announce, “The evidence supports that [the operative paradigm] appears to be true.” Honest scientists are also always ready to embrace a more complete explanation when the evidence supports such a shift.
It’s very difficult to admit error, misreading, or counterfactual assertion when disloyalty to Received Truth and its reported Author condemns one to eternal torture. The stakes of being wong are simply too great. To that end, I have great empathy for all who live subsumed in such fear. ~And~ that perspective did not give humanity: chemotherapy, cellphones, electricity, computers, X-ray machines, PET scans; polio, rubella, whooping cough, and flu vaccines; and the myriad of conveniences and medical interventions that so many Believers take for granted as if they were dispensed by the hand of God, …rather than discovered through the curiosity and developed through the sustained efforts of those driven to find answers in the predictable actions of natural law (with or without a deity pulling the strings).
But again, *they* ~may~ be right. Intellectual humility requires leaving room for one’s own misunderstandings, amenable to revision when presented with verifiable and reproducible evidence. The agnostic scientist will counter that the faithful have no scientifically verifiable evidence to offer, only the hearsay of their respective scriptures. I am wholly unqualified to adjudicate which perspective represents the “Is-ness” of the physical and/or metaphysical Universe. I can, however, affirm that *real* Science always brings evidence! Faith typically brings personal conviction anchored in the words and stories of long dead men (always men). Make of that what you will.
Of all of the comments I read above, I appreciate yours the most.
At least you have some reasoning involved.
Most people that believe in a creator just make comments like Ms. Garrison with out really giving a real basis or evidence for their belief.
The evidence for believing in a creator is so abundant that the Bible states at Romans 1:20. “ His invisible qualities are clearly seen from the world’s creation onward, because they are perceived by the things made, even his eternal power and Godship, so that they are inexcusable.
The evidence for a creator is in the design manifest in the creation.
Think about this for a moment.
If you were hiking in a very remote area of a wilderness area and you came across three rocks in a pile, a large one with a medium one on it and a small one on top of that, what would you conclude? What if there was another pile ten feet away just the same followed by a third pile ten feet further.
Obviously it would be evidence of intelligent design. Someone placed them there for a reason.
Where there is design, there is a designer.
When you look at the design in every thing around us, if you are honest with yourself, you have to recognize that there has to be a designer.
That raises the vital questions, why are things the way they are?
What is the purpose for all of this?
Can we get to know this designer?
For me, these were questions I needed answered that made sense and were logical.
Having had a fair bit of experience of rocks in wildernesses, all I can say is that God was polite enough not to deceive me that three absolutely identical piles of rocks could exist naturally in any real-world situation. That must be proof that there is a God.
Anecdotes prove nothing.
The best scientists are atheist according to AAAS polls. But even that is problematic since the 2016 evidence that the universe is entirely naturally produced. Since than I’m secular, since facts suffice to reject the man mad tales.
The best scientists are atheist according to AAAS polls. But even that is problematic since the 2016 evidence that the universe is entirely naturally produced. Since than I’m secular, since facts suffice to reject the man made tales.
Genesis 1:2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep.
“The early universe was bathed in a thick fog of neutral hydrogen,” explained Roberto Maiolino, a team member from the University of Cambridge and University College London.
Genesis 1:3: And God said ” Let there be light” And there was light.
“Most of this haze was lifted in a process called reionization, which was completed about one billion years after the Big Bang.
Lovely
The English bible is oft mistranslated in many ways, and translators have to determine what exactly the authors’ intent for certain words were. In Hebrew, Yom, is most often used/translated as “a day”, but that is not its intrinsic meaning. it can also mean “a time” more generally. It is an interpretation that Yom could be great periods, which would allow the big bang to be god’s method for creation, and the stages of creation loosely correlate to what humans have found about reality.
This is a stance held by the “old earth creationists.”
I believe both God ✨😇✨
And the JADES observatory 🙏
It’s fun to learn everything too 🪽
God Bless this Cold-broken 🌍 world 🌎.
I can’t believe one side (science) thinks that they can make the other side (God) convince each other. As someone who grew up believing in His Holy Name, as I grew older and wiser, I did my own research, it’s obvious that the Creator of all things is not what you think it is. Jesus on the other hand, was most likely an alien/human hybrid. BOOM
There are no faux “sides” on facts. Specifically on magic notions, we now know they are wrong.
“The Big Bang is the leading cosmological model explaining how the universe as we know it began approximately 13.8 billion years ago.”
Those years to God are 37,808 years ago.
“1000 years to God are as one day.”
Interesting approximation though.
You can cherry pick but it is still an erroneous claim.
Wasn’t this article supposed to be about ultraviolet light and ionized hydrogen?
“The large bubble of ionized hydrogen surrounding this galaxy might have been created by a peculiar population of stars — much more massive, hotter and more luminous than stars formed at later epochs, and possibly representative of the first generation of stars,” said Witstok.
The paper main models – of quasar or pop III sources – are a bit annoying. While both would be intriguing, between having early supermassive black holes and having first generation stars – the latter is the more elusive one. It is also less finetuned because they need the quasar disk to lie in our line of sight. But the absence of a He II line speaks against it.
The main models explain the necessary strength by having high radiation escape fractions – explicitly from the galaxy core region and perhaps by the bubble suggestion here – and of course the expansion of the universe:
“The latest observations reveal a clear signature of UV light being emitted from the GS-z13-1 galaxy. This suggests the galaxy must have been surrounded by a plasma bubble at least 650,000 light years across, the astronomers estimate. Beyond that distance, UV light would have been red-shifted into the visible light range, which is less likely to be captured by hydrogen gas.”
– Guardian
Thank you for bringing the conversation back to the subject matter.
Why do people with strong religious convictions come to this site and read articles that upset them. Don’t they understand the abbreviations “Sci” and “Tech” stand for Science and Technology. They need to look for Religious Theology Daily instead.
People like to argue.