Oxygen found in the most distant galaxy — this surprised scientists

Astronomers have made a breakthrough in the study of the early Universe, discovering oxygen in the most distant known galaxy. This discovery completely changes scientists' existing understanding of the formation of cosmic objects. The sensational finding was made possible thanks to observations from the ALMA telescope, which detected a galaxy with the catalog name SXDF-NB1006−2. Located at a colossal distance of 13.1 billion light-years from our planet, this galaxy appears to us as it was almost at the dawn of the Universe's existence - when the cosmos was only 700 million years old.

An international team of scientists from Japan and Europe, conducting research using ALMA, identified the presence of oxygen in this ancient galaxy - an element that is formed as a result of thermonuclear processes inside stars and released during their subsequent explosions. The discovery caused a real shock in the scientific community, as it was previously believed that galaxies of this age should contain minimal amounts of heavy elements, including oxygen.

However, SXDF-NB1006−2 demonstrated unexpected "maturity" - it already contained stars that had completed a full life cycle from birth to death as supernovae. This observation indicates that star formation in the early Universe occurred much more intensively than previously assumed in cosmological models.

According to researchers, such discoveries require a fundamental revision of existing theories about how galaxies formed and evolved at the dawn of cosmic history.