Galaxy brain 🤯 Preliminary Webb science shows galaxies confirmed by spectroscopy to date back to less than 400 million years after the big bang. Spectroscopy refers to breaking light into its components to create spectra, which can be thought of as “barcodes.” On a "barcode," elements and molecules have characteristic signatures we can read. Because the universe is expanding, the light from distant galaxies is stretched — or redshifted — into longer, infrared wavelengths. We can figure out galaxies’ distances by measuring how much the signatures of elements in their spectra have shifted due to this effect. Without spectroscopy, it can be hard to confirm how far away a galaxy is, as closer galaxies can “masquerade” as distant ones. To search for the earliest galaxies, scientists looked for a distinct feature in spectra that required Webb’s unprecedented infrared sensitivity to observe. This data is from Webb science in progress, which has not yet been peer reviewed. Finding and confirming early galaxies is a continuous process, and Webb is just getting started. More at our link in bio! Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb). Brant Robertson (UC Santa Cruz), S. Tacchella (Cambridge), E. Curtis-Lake (UOH), S. Carniani (Scuola Normale Superiore), JADES Collaboration Image descriptions: 1. A close-up of hundreds of assorted galaxies on a black background. Their colors include white, yellow, orange and blue. Some are spirals, while others appear more like blobs or streaks. There are scattered stars, some with large eight-pointed spikes. 2. On a black background, two white, rectangular outlines are connected at one corner. Within the two outlines are hundreds of small galaxies of all colors. Thin white lines connect to four outlined inset boxes on the right. Each of these boxes contain a blurry central dot surrounded by other specks. The central dots are distant galaxies Webb has discovered that date back to less than 400 million years after the big bang. The featured galaxies are reddest in the top inset boxes and closer to orange and white in the bottom two boxes. #JWST #JamesWebbSpaceTelescope #NASA #Space #Galaxy #Universe #BigBang