MoM-z14

MoM-z14 is the most distant known galaxy, with a redshift of z = 14.44. The galaxy was first imaged on 16 May 2025 by the NIRcam instrument aboard the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). That image captured the galaxy during its formation about 280 million years after the Big Bang, during the Reionization Era of the early universe. This was the stage of cosmic evolution when neutral hydrogen began once again to ionize due to energy radiated by the earliest celestial objects. MoM-z14 is a remarkably luminous and compact galaxy, with an effective radius of only 241+49−39 light years, making it about one per cent the size of the Milky Way. The very large degree of lookback present in high-z objects allows them to be imaged, as opposed to merely detected as points of light. This is because the light from MoM-z14 was emitted when it was far closer, and its source apparently larger, to the point in space which the space telescope that discovered it now occupies. It contains around 108 solar masses, somewhat less than the Small Magellanic Cloud's 3 billion M☉. At the time it was imaged, representing its appearance some 13.53 billion years ago, MoM-z14 appears to have gone through a period of rapid star formation. This enriched the metallicity of the galaxy to a level not presently accounted for in current models of early galaxy formation. This burst of star-formation also gave off large quantities of energetic photons, which have travelled through a virtually dust free interstellar medium (ISM), leaving the immediate surroundings of MoM-z14 partially ionized.