The James Webb Space Telescope has traced different star clusters in the “Firefly Sparkle” galaxy, which existed just 600 million years after the Big Bang. This galaxy is the first of its kind to have the lightness and active star formation of the young Milky Way.

What gave Firefly Sparkle its name was the strong gravitational effect of a large cluster of galaxies in the foreground. This effect magnified and stretched the galaxy's star clusters, giving them the appearance of a bright streak. Webb's ability to observe a galaxy from such an early period of the universe with such clarity and to identify its individual components is considered an extraordinary achievement.

The clusters of star formations that make up the building blocks of the Firefly Sparkle galaxy did not form all at once. These star clusters formed gradually over time, going through different stages of formation and evolution.

According to the estimated structure of the galaxy, the stars are not arranged in a central bulge or in a thin, flattened disk. The other galaxies Webb observed from this period have much larger masses than Firefly Sparkle and are closer in size to what the Milky Way would have been at the same stage of its development.

Description:

Photo 1: Shows small circles around a larger oval in the center labeled as the Firefly Sparkle galaxy. Inside it, a long line stretching from bottom left to top right contains 10 circular star clusters in pink, purple and blue. The galaxy in the bottom left is labeled Companion 1 and looks like a bright red dot. Companion 2 in the upper right is lighter red and is surrounded by a red disk.

Photo 2: shows a galaxy cluster showing thousands of superimposed galaxies spread over a black field in white, pink, orange and blue colors. In the center is a large white elliptical galaxy next to many thin, long orange or pink arcs. These are stretched and distorted background galaxies. Photo 1 is a zoomed-in view of the small white box highlighting some of these arcs.

 

Image credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Chris Willott (NRC-Canada), Lamiya Mowla (Wellesley College), Kartheik Iyer (Columbia)