DEEP SPACE What do the galaxies from the early universe look like now?
Shaun Allen We can only really speculate. Since light emitted from galaxies takes a long time to get to us – millions, if not billions, of years in fact – we only see the galaxies as they used to be. The most distant galaxies are also the youngest, so technically, they are galactic as we see them.
Given our understanding of how galaxies grow and evolve, it’s thought that the early galaxies could look like the galactic structures that are closest to us. Unfortunately, we don’t know for sure and, as such, we’re unable to get a good handle on how these distant galaxies might have evolved into the ones we see nearby. We can, however, get…