Webb Telescope Discovers Most Distant Galaxy Yet
In this video, we present the summary of the paper that reports the discovery of two luminous galaxies, JADES-GS-z14-0 and JADES-GS-z14-1, with confirmed redshifts of 14.32 and 13.90, respectively. These findings are based on deep JWST/NIRSpec spectroscopy. The galaxies exhibit ultraviolet continua with prominent Lyman-α breaks, indicative of their high redshifts, and show no detectable emission lines. The data reveals that these galaxies existed around 300 million years after the Big Bang and are more common than previously anticipated. JADES-GS-z14-0, in particular, is extremely luminous, with a spatial resolution indicating a radius of 260 parsecs. The presence of these luminous galaxies so early challenges existing galaxy formation models, which must now account for the rapid development of such large structures. This discovery emphasizes that stellar continuum emission, rather than black hole accretion, predominantly contributes to the observed excess of luminous early galaxies.
Reference: Carniani, S., Hainline, K.N., Eugenio, F., Eisenstein, D.J., Jakobsen, P., Witstok, J., Johnson, B.D., Chevallard, J., Maiolino, R., Helton, J.M., Willott, C.J., Robertson, B.E., Alberts, S., Arribas, S., Baker, W.M., Bhatawdekar, R.A., Boyett, K.N., Bunker, A.J., Cameron, A.J., Cargile, P.A., Charlot, S., Curti, M., Curtis-Lake, E., Egami, E., Giardino, G., Isaak, K., Ji, Z., Jones, G.C., Maseda, M.V., Parlanti, E., Rawle, T.D., Rieke, G., Rieke, M.J., Pino, B.R., Saxena, A., Scholtz, J., Smit, R., Sun, F., Tacchella, S., Ubler, H., Venturi, G., Williams, C.C., & Willmer, C.N. (2024). A shining cosmic dawn: spectroscopic confirmation of two luminous galaxies at ~z.