WASHINGTON—The James Webb Space Telescope since becoming operational in 2022 has uncovered numerous surprises about what things were like in the universe’s early stages. We now can add one more—observations of a galaxy that was already “dead” when the universe was only 5 percent of its current age.
Scientists said on Wednesday that Webb has spotted a galaxy where star formation had already ceased roughly 13.1 billion years ago. Many dead galaxies have been detected over the years, but this is the earliest by about 500 million years.
