I'd like to introduce you to a little galaxy named Jades-G-S-G-14-0.

It is the most distant, known galaxy.

It's unlikely to hold its title for long as the James Webb

Space Telescope is designed to find even more distant galaxies, but for now it reigns supreme.

This galaxy, and we'll call it Jade for short, has a redshift of 14.32, hence the Z-14 in its full name.

And it existed when the universe was only 290 million years old.

That's a toddler compared to the present-day age of the universe of nearly 14 billion years.

Jade is small.

It's only about 1,600 light years across, but it's mighty.

It's exceptionally bright and full of stars.

In fact, it might be a little too bright and too full of stars.

And at 1,600 light years across, while not a lot by modern

present-day universe standards, at that early epoch, it's a veritable behemoth of a galaxy.

Jade is so young, so bright, and so large that some have openly wondered if it's even possible to explain the existence of

jade within our current understanding of the Big Bang.

So what's going on?

Are these galaxies breaking cosmology?

Or is there more to the story?

Well, if this is your first time encountering me or this show, then one I'm about to say

may come as a little bit of a surprise.

If you're a regular, first, welcome back.

And two, you know exactly what I'm going to say next.

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