James Webb Space Telescope discovers oldest organic molecules in the known universe, 12 billion light-years from Earth

A blue dot surrounded by an orange rings on a black background. In the left corner, a red dot glows.

Scientists using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have spotted a cloud of complicated organic molecules in a galaxy 12.3 billion light-years away  — the farthest from Earth that molecules of this kind have ever been detected. The discovery, which was published on June 5 in the journal Nature, might help astronomers piece together a clearer picture of how galaxies develop.

"We didn't expect this," Joaquin Vieira, an astronomer at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and co-author of the new study, said in a press release. "Detecting these complex organic molecules at such a vast distance is game-changing."