The detection of a galaxy rich in oxygen just 300 million years after the Big Bang, such as JADES-GS-z14-0, challenges our understanding of how quickly galaxies evolved in the early universe. While it doesn’t directly prove that life evolved earlier, it does suggest that the necessary ingredients for life, specifically heavier elements like oxygen, were present much sooner than previously thought.
The Cosmic Connection to Life
The existence of life as we know it is dependent on “heavy” elements, which astronomers call metals, that are forged inside stars. Hydrogen and helium were the only elements present in the universe immediately after the Big Bang. Heavier elements like carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen are produced through nuclear fusion in stars and then dispersed into space when those stars die, often in dramatic supernova explosions.
The discovery of a significant amount of oxygen in a very young galaxy indicates that multiple generations of stars must have already been born, lived, and died. This rapid cycle of star formation and death in the early universe could mean that planets and other celestial bodies with the building blocks for life were also formed earlier.
The Great Oxidation Event on Earth
The history of oxygen in the universe is distinct from the history of oxygen on Earth. On our planet, the Great Oxidation Event was a period roughly 2.4 billion years ago when molecular oxygen (O2) began to accumulate in the atmosphere. This was a result of cyanobacteria, a form of microbial life, producing oxygen through photosynthesis. While the universe had a supply of the element oxygen, Earth’s atmosphere was initially devoid of it. The presence of oxygen was a toxic byproduct for many of the earliest anaerobic life forms, but it paved the way for the evolution of more complex, oxygen-breathing organisms.
Oxygen in a distant galaxy
A monster galaxy from the early universe shows that the cosmos was rich with oxygen when it was only less than 3% of its present age, astronomers have found. The discovery raises questions about how early life could have first appeared in the universe.
This isn’t the first time astronomers have looked at that enigmatic galaxy, named JADES-GS-z11-0. It was first spotted with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) through a survey of some of the deepest, earliest galaxies ever discovered. At that time, the galaxy was estimated to exist only 100 million years after the Big Bang — something that should be impossible with our current understanding of cosmology.
But further refinements to JADES-GS-z11-0’s distance measurement have more accurately pinned it to 400 million years after the Big Bang — still shockingly early, but not early enough to break modern cosmology.
JADES-GS-z11-0 is remarkable. Although it’s not nearly as massive as modern-day galaxies, it’s still impressive and mature. Although the galaxy is so far away that we’re observing it as it existed in the early universe, it wouldn’t look all that different if placed in the present-day universe. But unlike modern galaxies, it had only 400 million years to develop, putting it right at the edge of the first stars and galaxies ever to appear in the universe.
JADES-GS-z11-0 doesn’t necessarily break our understanding of how galaxies evolved in the early universe, but it does challenge it. Getting that much oxygen takes several generations of stars, but when the universe was only 400 million years old, there wasn’t a lot of time for those stars to live and die.
Plus, that much oxygen presents an intriguing new question: How early could life have developed in the universe? Such a large amount of oxygen must come with carbon, silicon and all of the other elements needed for life. Who knows what planets might have developed in this young galaxy and what may have arisen on them. However, much more research is needed to answer these questions
Can life in present in early universe if oxygen was present in early universe
While oxygen is a key ingredient for life as we know it, its presence alone would not be enough for life to exist in the early universe. The theory that life could have existed is intriguing, but it required many other complex conditions to be met, some of which seem unlikely during that period.
The challenge of oxygen in the early universe
- The origin of oxygen: The very first stars, formed tens to hundreds of millions of years after the Big Bang, created the first heavy elements like oxygen and carbon through nuclear fusion. When these stars died in supernova explosions, they dispersed these elements throughout the cosmos.
- The rapid accumulation of oxygen: The James Webb Space Telescope has shown that some galaxies became rich in oxygen much earlier than expected—potentially within a few hundred million years of the Big Bang. This suggests that the basic chemical building blocks for life were available sooner than once believed.
Necessary conditions missing from the early universe
- Habitable planets: Planets capable of supporting life likely did not exist in the earliest universe. The first elements were spread across vast, empty spaces, and it took time for these materials to accumulate into the dense, cool disks needed to form rocky, Earth-like planets.
- A stable environment: The early universe was a much more violent and chaotic place.
- The cosmic background temperature was much higher.
- Intense radiation from massive, early stars and other energetic events would have been prevalent.
- Planetary systems that did form would have experienced heavy, disruptive bombardment.
- Liquid water: While oxygen could combine with hydrogen to form water, stable liquid water is only possible within a specific temperature range and under sufficient atmospheric pressure. This would have required habitable, atmosphere-retaining planets, which took time to form.
- Sufficient time: Even with the necessary elements and a habitable planet, it still takes a very long time for life to arise from non-living matter through a process called abiogenesis. In the earliest eons of the universe, this might not have been enough time, even with a head start.
The possibility of very early life
For life to have existed, all the right conditions would have to have been met in a specific location at a specific time. One proposed scenario for “very early life” suggests that conditions might have been right on a cosmic scale during a brief window when the universe’s background temperature was similar to a planet’s surface temperature today. However, this theory is largely speculative and does not overcome the more significant obstacle of having other necessary elements and a stable, isolated planet.
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