At some point, the first stars formed. Then came small galaxies. Like a celestial Macondo, each galaxy became a hometown for stellar family trees. When these ancestors receded away in an expanding Universe, their light stretched into obscurity, and only now have astronomers begun to see them. The early galaxies also germinated gasses whose glow we’re only now detecting, visible thanks to the same science that governs the fluorescent lights in the window of your favorite bodega.
