Webb Space Telescope Spies Precocious ‘Teenage’ Galaxies

Light from 23 distant galaxies, identified with red rectangles in the Hubble Space Telescope image at the top, was combined to capture incredibly faint emission from eight different elements—hydrogen, helium, nitrogen, oxygen, silicon, sulfur, argon, and nickel. M. Geller, Northwestern, CIERA + IT-RCDS/Handout via Reuters

WASHINGTON—Since becoming operational last year, the James Webb Space Telescope has made groundbreaking observations involving some of the universe’s earliest galaxies. One might call them galactic infants.

But Webb has obtained even better data on galaxies a bit further along in development. Astronomers call these the galactic “teenagers.” And, as new research shows, they resemble human teenagers in certain respects, including by displaying growth spurts along with a bit of immaturity.