Using a cosmic zoom lens, astronomers have discovered what may be one of the first baby galaxies in the universe–a clump of young stars that might have merged long ago with thousands of other infants to form one of the earliest full-grown galaxies.
According to the standard theory of galaxy formation, big galaxies evolve from smaller ones. Star-bearing clumps form first and then join to make larger galaxies like the Milky Way. Astronomers have documented that ongoing process as far back as 8 billion years ago, when the cosmos was less than half its current age. But researchers don't yet know when the first galaxies coalesced, and whether they too resulted from the merger of smaller bodies. The new findings, reported in an upco