James Webb Space Telescope witnesses Firefly Sparkle galaxy ‘being assembled brick by brick’ (image, video)

A relic galaxy has been uncovered from the early universe, revealing new clues about what our own galaxy, the Milky Way, may have looked like billions of years ago.

In new images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the galaxy appears as a long, warped arc teaming with star clusters that resemble a swarm of lightning bugs on a warm summer night. The dazzling appearance has earned this cosmic structure the nickname “Firefly Sparkle Galaxy.”

Using computer modeling, researchers “weighed” the galaxy, showing that it has a mass similar to what the Milky Way’s mass might have been at the same stage of development 600 million years after the Big Bang. Other galaxies discovered to date from a similar time period have been much more massive, according to a statement from NASA.

“I didn’t think it would be possible to resolve a galaxy that existed so early in the universe into so many distinct components, let alone find that its mass is similar to our own galaxy’s when it was in the process of forming,” Lamiya Mowla, co-lead author of the study and an assistant professor at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, said in the statement. “There is so much going on inside this tiny galaxy, including so many different phases of star formation.”