How did we get here? This fundamental question may be applied on its grandest scale in cosmology, which investigates the history and origin of the universe. Astronomers are able to investigate the early universe and its development like never before with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, including the first galaxies. 

The powerful telescope’s latest findings are the first to spectroscopically confirm distances for a young protocluster of galaxies just 650 million years after the big bang. Astronomers think the protocluster represents the earliest stages of what will develop into a massive conglomeration like the Coma Cluster, which includes thousands of gravitationally bound member galaxies.