Kevin Hainline

Light from a distant galaxy traveled to us for 13.4 billion years. The James Webb Space Telescope caught it and split it into colors. The spectrum shows a bright hydrogen line, like a fingerprint saying that galaxy GS-z13-1-LA is actively forming stars. Young hot stars inside the galaxy act like floodlights.

400 million years after the Big Bang, the James Webb Space Telescope noticed a bright spot near the galaxy GN-z11 — like a distant lighthouse whose light pushed through the primordial darkness.

Right after the Big Bang, the Universe was a chemical desert — only hydrogen and helium, not a hint of metals. But moments passed (by cosmic standards), and the birth of the first stars — Population III — began.