Free Astronomy Magazine November-December 2024

26 NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2024 ASTRO PUBLISHING our Milky Way galaxy have looked like at that time? Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have found clues in the form of a cosmic question mark, the result of a rare alignment across light-years of space. “We know of only three or four occurrences of similar gravita- tional lens configurations in the ob- servable universe, which makes this find exciting, as it demonstrates the power of Webb and suggests maybe now we will find more of these,” said astronomer Guillaume Desprez of Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, a member of the team Webb reveals a galaxy shaped like a question mark by NASA/ESA/CSA Leah Ramsay Christine Pulliam I t’s 7 billion years ago, and the uni- verse’s heyday of star formation is beginning to slow. What might