Astronomers have caught an immensely ancient galaxy piercing the veil of darkness that shrouded the early universe.

It's surprising any light from distant galaxy JADES-GS-Z13-1-LA reached Earth at all. Photons coming from the realm that recently landed on the James Webb Space Telescope's mirrors existed when the universe was just 330 million years old — and, at that point in its adolescence, the universe was foggy and dim. A dense haze of gas suffused the space between stars, and even between galaxies, absorbing starlight and muffling the whole universe in darkness.

Astronomers call this period the Cosmic Dark Ages, and JADES-GS-Z13-1-LA is the earliest light we've seen (so far) piercing that cosmic fog.