---
title: "Astronomers Just Found the Oldest Galaxies in the Universe"
description: "An international team of astronomers spotted what's believed to be the oldest collection of galaxies in the known universe."
date: "2019-09-30"
modified: "2019-09-30"
authors:
  - name: "Dan Robitzski"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/danrobitzski"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/astronomers-oldest-galaxies-universe"
categories:
  - "Science & Energy"
tags:
  - "galaxies"
  - "space"
  - "the digest"
---

# Astronomers Just Found the Oldest Galaxies in the Universe

![An international team of astronomers spotted what's believed to be the oldest collection of galaxies in the known universe.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/astronomers-oldest-galaxies-universe.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: NAOJ/Harikane et al.\</em\>*

## Old Ones

Astronomers just spotted a protocluster of galaxies that are [older than any others](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/astronomers-discover-ancient-galaxies>) in the known universe.

The discovery only recently became possible, because the light given off by the galaxies' stars reached Earth after making an epic 13-billion-light-year journey across the universe, *[Live Science ](<https://www.livescience.com/galaxy-cluster-infant-universe.html>)*[reports](<https://www.livescience.com/galaxy-cluster-infant-universe.html>). The ancient group is just about 800 million years younger than the universe itself — and its unexpected behavior could shed light on how the cosmos have changed over the past 13 billion years.

## Star Power

In tightly-packed galaxy clusters, star formation tends to be stunted — the most active galaxies tend to be more spread out. But the opposite seems to have happened in this ancient cluster, [according to research](<https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ab2cd5>) published Monday in *The Astrophysical Journal*, with [15 times more star density](<https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-09/nion-ogp092419.php>) than expected.

The twelve galaxies that make up the newly-discovered protocluster seem to have been hotbeds of stellar activity, back in the early days of the universe, *Live Science* reports — but the large, international team of researchers behind the discovery haven't yet figured out why.

## Ancient Clump

That mystery aside, *Live Science* reports that the very fact that such a dense group of galaxies could long ago upends how astronomers thought the cosmos worked.

"These results will be a key for understanding the relationship between clusters and massive galaxies," University of Tokyo researcher Masami Ouchi, who contributed to the discovery, said in a press release.

**READ MORE:** [Huge Cosmic Structures Already Existed When the Universe Was a Baby](<https://www.livescience.com/galaxy-cluster-infant-universe.html>) \[*Live Science*\]

**More on space:** *Astrophysicists Warn That Entire Galaxies "Are Being Killed"*

## Author
Dan Robitzki is a senior reporter for Futurism, where he likes to cover AI, tech ethics, and medicine. He spends his extra time fencing and streaming games from Los Angeles, California.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://x.com/danrobitzski>)