A team of astronomers led by Pablo G. Pérez-González, an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrobiology in Madrid, has found nine mysterious light sources at the farthest edges of the observable universe. Six of them are at a redshift of 17. Three are at a redshift of 25.
For those unfamiliar, redshift is how astronomers measure distance in the universe. The higher the number, the further away something is — and the further back in time we are looking.
Redshift 17 means we’re seeing the universe when it was only about 200 million years old. Redshift 25 means… just 100 million years after the Big Bang. These are the deepest observations Webb has ever made — Pérez-González says “the deepest by a factor of a few.” If these light sources really are at those distances, it means the early universe was far more active in its first 200 million years than anyone had imagined.
