NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has discovered a young galaxy from the early universe, named Firefly Sparkle, which is still in the process of forming stars. This galaxy, along with two neighboring galaxies, existed about 600 million years after the Big Bang. The discovery provides astronomers with a glimpse into what our Milky Way might have looked like in its early stages.

Researchers stated that Firefly Sparkle dates back to when the universe was approximately 5% of its current age. It has a mass equivalent to about 10 million stars like our sun and is accompanied by two smaller galaxies, Firefly-Best Friend and Firefly-New Best Friend. The galaxy consists of 10 densely packed star clusters, with eight in its central region and two along its extended arm. Its main visible portion spans about 1,000 light-years across.

Astronomer Lamiya Mowla, co-lead author of the study published in the journal Nature, explained that the Milky Way likely began forming around the same time as Firefly Sparkle. This observation offers a direct view of what galaxies like our Milky Way might have looked like in their infancy. At this stage, Firefly Sparkle was about 10,000 times less massive than the current Milky Way, which is typical for galaxies at that epoch.

The name 'Firefly Sparkle' was chosen because the galaxy's gleaming star clusters resemble bioluminescent bugs. Firefly Sparkle is located about 6,500 light-years from Firefly-Best Friend and about 42,000 light-years from Firefly-New Best Friend. All three galaxies would fit within the present-day Milky Way, which measures about 100,000 light-years across.

Early galaxies like Firefly Sparkle are believed to form through the collapse of dense gas clouds in the early universe. Current theories suggest that stars form from gas in extreme conditions, and these galaxies can build up through the formation of massive star clusters in regions of extreme pressure and density. The star clusters in Firefly Sparkle display different colors, indicating they did not all form simultaneously.

The James Webb Space Telescope has been able to observe galaxies dating back to the first few hundred million years after the Big Bang, known as cosmic dawn. Firefly Sparkle is one of the earliest low-mass galaxies currently known, observed with the help of gravitational lensing, which magnifies the light from distant objects.

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