Oxygen discovered in most distant early galaxy

Astronomers say the Universe may have developed much faster than previously thought – after finding oxygen in the most distant known galaxy – something only usually seen after the death of a star.

Teams of scientists, including at LJMU, have been examining photographs of the most distant galaxy ever detected, taken by the European Southern Observatory and the ALMA telescope in Chile.

Because of the time it takes light to travel to Earth, the images portray what happened in this star system 13.4 bn years ago, not long after the Big Bang.

Then just 300m years old, the galaxy – JADES-GS-z14-0 - was very much in its infancy and would not have contained oxygen as this only usually appears after the collapse of stars.

Dr Renske Smit, a researcher at LJMU’s Astrophysics Research Institute, said the discovery gives scientists a whole new perspective on how we believe galaxies are formed and evolve.

Renske and PhD student Katherine Ormerod analysed images to conclude that the galaxy, at 300m years, had at least 10% the amount of oxygen ‘enrichment’ that we have in our own solar system.

“That may not sound much but, given how early this is in the Universe, we expected to find a `baby’ galaxy with at most 1% of the oxygen we have in our own solar system.

“At 10%, this galaxy is well on its way to form the kind of stars and planets we have in our own Milky Way!

ARI researchers, led by Professor Rob Crain, are currently looking at models of the early Universe and running giant, super-computer simulations on the Prospero HPC facility.

“These kind of galaxies are extremely difficult to explain. We really need to think about changing the standard galaxy formation theory,” added Dr Smit.