Since becoming operational last year, the James Webb Space Telescope has made groundbreaking observations involving some of the universe's earliest galaxies. One might call them galactic infants.
But Webb has obtained even better data on galaxies a bit further along in development. Astronomers call these the galactic "teenagers." And, as new research shows, they resemble human teenagers in certain respects, including by displaying growth spurts along with a bit of immaturity.
The researchers focused upon galaxies that formed about 2-3 billion years after the Big Bang event roughly 13.8 billion years ago that initiated the universe. The study averaged data obtained by Webb on light across various wavelengths emanating from 23 such galaxies - their "chemical DNA" - to paint a composite picture of teenage galactic characteristics.
