Wellesley College Astronomers Capture Rare Glimpse of Newborn Galaxy Mirroring Early Milky Way

A groundbreaking discovery, led by a team of astronomers from Wellesley College, has unveiled stunning new images of a nascent galaxy strikingly similar to our own Milky Way in its infancy. This extraordinary find offers an unprecedented glimpse into the cosmic past, revealing what our galaxy might have looked like billions of years ago when it was just beginning to form.

Breathtaking images captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have unveiled a mesmerizing cosmic spectacle: a young galaxy, dubbed the “Firefly Sparkle,” that bears a striking resemblance to our own Milky Way in its infancy. This newly discovered galaxy, which formed approximately 600 million years after the Big Bang, is adorned with 10 distinct star clusters that emerged at various times, much like the stellar clusters that populate our Milky Way.

Resembling a celestial fireworks display, the Firefly Sparkle is shrouded in a diffuse arc and features star clusters that appear to dance across the cosmic canvas, much like fireflies on a summer night. This extraordinary discovery provides astronomers with a unique opportunity to study the early stages of galaxy formation and gain valuable insights into the evolution of our own Milky Way.

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Wellesley College astronomer Lamiya Mowla is co-lead author of the paper, which was published Wednesday, Dec. 11, in Nature.

Mowla says the discovery is particularly important because the mass of the Firefly Sparkle is similar to what the Milky Way’s mass might have been at the same stage of development. (Other galaxies Webb has detected from this time period are significantly more massive.)

“These remarkable images give us an unprecedented picture of what our own galaxy might have looked like when it was being born,” Mowla says. “By examining these photos of the Firefly Sparkle, we can better understand how our own Milky Way took shape.”

Glimpses of a young galaxy forming in a way so similar to our own are unparalleled, Mowla says. The JWST images show a Milky Way-like galaxy in the early stages of its assembly in a universe that’s only 600 million years old.

“As an observational astronomer studying the structural evolution of astronomical objects in the early Universe, I want to understand how the first stars, star clusters, galaxies, and galaxy clusters formed in the infant Universe and how they changed as the Universe got older,” Mowla notes. Of the Firefly Sparkle, she says, ““I didn’t think it would be possible to resolve a galaxy that existed so early in the universe into so many distinct components, let alone find that its mass is similar to our own galaxy’s when it was in the process of forming.

“There is so much going on inside this tiny galaxy, including so many different phases of star formation,” Mowla told NASA. “These images are the very first glimpse of something that we’ll be able to study—and learn from—for many years to come.”