Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have recently confirmed that two galaxies are extremely distant, with one becoming the new record holder as the most distant galaxy from Earth.^1,2 The new record-holding galaxy is designated as JADES-GS-z14-0 and is shown in the inset in the above image. By uniformitarian reckoning, this galaxy existed just 290 million years after the supposed Big Bang, yet it looks too mature for its age. The previous record holder was galaxy JADES-GS-z13-0, with a presumed age of just 320 million years after the Big Bang.²

This new record-breaker is just the latest example of the “distant mature galaxy problem” that has long plagued the Big Bang model.³ Because many distant galaxies are billions of light-years away from Earth, evolutionary astronomers assume that light from those galaxies took billions of years to reach us. While this may seem reasonable, creationists think this assumption is open to challenge and have proposed a number of ways that God could have caused distant starlight to reach Earth quickly.⁴

Because Big Bang proponents think the most distant galaxies emitted their light more than 13 billion years ago, they think we are seeing these galaxies, not as they are today, but as they were shortly after the Big Bang. Because naturalistic star and galaxy formation scenarios require hundreds of millions of years, they think these galaxies should appear “immature” and “unevolved.” But this Big Bang expectation has been repeatedly contradicted, with very distant galaxies often appearing mature,^5,6,7 like JADES-GS-z14-0.

To make matters worse, astronomers detected oxygen in JADES-GS-z14-0.⁸ Big Bang astronomers believe the first generation of stars, designated as Population III stars, contained almost no elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. They think heavier elements like oxygen were present in later generations of stars. The presence of “significant” amounts of oxygen suggests that, by Big Bang reasoning, multiple generations of stars preceded the existence of JADES-GS-z14-0 as we now see it. Webb telescope astronomers were quoted as saying, “The presence of oxygen so early in the life of this galaxy is a surprise and suggests that multiple generations of very massive stars had already lived their lives before we observed the galaxy.”⁸

As recently as 2021, an official NASA Big Bang timeline claimed the first stars formed about 400 million years after the Big Bang.^6,9 In 2022, Nature claimed that the first stars formed 250 million years after the Big Bang.¹⁰ Yet the James Webb Telescope has found a galaxy—not a star, but a galaxy—that, by Big Bang reckoning, existed just 290 million after the Big Bang. The existence of even one generation of stars at this supposed time was a surprise to Big Bang astronomers, but by their reasoning, the presence of oxygen in JADES-GS-z14-0 implies that multiple generations of stars had already “lived” and “died” only 290 million years after the supposed Big Bang!

Professor Brant Robertson (University of California, Santa Cruz) said, “We could have detected this galaxy even if it were 10 times fainter, which means that we could see other examples yet earlier in the Universe – probably into the first 200 million years.”⁹ Given that galaxy distance and age records keep getting repeatedly broken, it seems quite possible, even likely, that they will observe such a galaxy in the not-too-distant future. But is this reasonable? The stress on the Big Bang model is already so strong that one physicist suggested doubling the age of the universe to resolve the tension!¹¹

The researchers were quoted as asking, “This starlight implies that the galaxy is several hundreds of millions of times the mass of the sun!...How can nature make such a bright, massive, and large galaxy in less than 300 million years?”¹

The answer is that nature did not and cannot make or create anything at all. Rather, the Lord Jesus Christ, not a deified or personified nature, deserves the credit and glory for creating the stars and galaxies on Day 4 of the creation week, just as described in Genesis.

References

1. Ahmed, I. Webb telescope finds most distant galaxy ever observed, again. Phys.org. Posted on phys.org June 1, 2024, accessed June 3, 2024.
2. Carniani, S. et al. 2024. A shining cosmic dawn: spectroscopic confirmation of two luminous galaxies at z ~14. Preprint posted at arxiv.org.
3. Hebert, J. Distant Barred Spiral Galaxy Shouldn’t Exist? Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org November 27, 2023, accessed June 3, 2024.
4. Dennis, P. W. 2018. Consistent Young Earth Relativistic Cosmology. Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism. 8, article 23.
5. Hebert, J. “Early” Spiral Galaxy Surprise. Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org May 1, 2020, accessed June 3, 2024.
6. Hebert, J. Webb Telescope Continues to Challenge Big Bang. Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org January 26, 2023, accessed June 3, 2024.
7. Thomas, B. ‘Old’ Galaxy Found in ‘Young’ Part of the Universe. Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org May 24, 2011, accessed June 3, 2024.
8. Amos, J. Earliest and most distant galaxy ever observed. BBC. Posted on bbc.com May 30, 2024, accessed June 3, 2024.
9. A NASA Big Bang timeline image, first produced around 2006, states that the first stars formed 400 million years after the Big Bang. However, the age of 13.77 billion years cited on the poster as the age of the universe was calculated and published in 2021. Thus, as recently as 2021, NASA was claiming that stars—let alone galaxies!—did not exist until 400 million years after the Big Bang. See also discussion in reference 6.
10. Witze, A. Four revelations from the James Webb telescope about distant galaxies. Nature. Posted on nature.com July 27, 2022, accessed January 10, 2023.
11. Hebert, J. Big Bang Troubles? No Problem, Just Double the Universe’s Age! Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org July 31, 2023, accessed June 3, 2024.

Stage image: Galaxy JADES-GS-z14-0

Stage image credit: Copyright © NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, B. Robertson (UC Santa Cruz), B. Johnson (CfA), S. Tacchella (Cambridge), P. Cargile (CfA);s. Used in accordance with federal copyright (fair use doctrine) law. Usage by ICR does not imply endorsement of copyright holder.

*Article updated June 18, 2024, replacing "about 400 million years ago" with "about 400 years after the Big Bang."

* Dr. Jake Hebert is a research associate at the Institute for Creation Research and earned his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Texas at Dallas.