Imagine a Trojan horse, but on a cosmic scale. Instead of hiding warriors, it keeps a secret about the first moments of everything we know in the universe. And now, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), our most powerful eye in the sky, may have found just that: a celestial object so old that it challenges our understanding of how the first galaxies formed. Astronomers have named it “Capotauro”, a mountain in Italy.
The discovery of Capotauro (officially CEERS ID U-100588) is, above all, a puzzle for science. Those responsible for the discovery, analyzing the data from the CEERS survey, They came across a signal so extreme that they are considering three hypotheses, each one more intriguing than the last..
One of the most striking aspects is that it would be the most distant and oldest galaxy ever seen. Until now, the title was held by MoM-z14, a galaxy whose light has been reaching us since when the universe was just 280 million years old. If the initial estimates about Capotauro are correct, its light began its journey just 90 million years after the Big Bang. A colossal leap back in time.
Another option is that it is a closer galaxy, but so loaded with cosmic dust that it deceives our telescopes, posing as an object much older than it is. Finally, we could be facing a cold object in our own Milky Way. The most “local” explanation suggests that Capotaurus is not a galaxybut rather a dark, wandering object within our galaxy, like a brown dwarf or a mysterious “floating planet” that doesn’t orbit any stars.
But if it is about the oldest galaxy in the universe and was born 90 million years after the birth of the cosmoswould be the equivalent of being in front of an object that emerged, comparatively, one Earth year after the Big Bang.
Suppose the Big Bang occurred at midnight on January 1st. According to this calendar, the Milky Way formed around March 1 and the Earth was born on September 14. The first humans would have appeared on the scene at 11:52 p.m. on December 31.
In this calendar, each day represents about 40 million years. The previous record holder, MoM-z14, was formed on January 8. If the data does not lie, Capotauro emerged in the early morning of January 3. It was one of the first structures to emerge from the primordial darkness.
The excitement is obvious, but science demands caution. If Capotauro is really a galaxy only 90 million years old, we would be facing a phenomenon of disconcerting efficiency. To be so brilliant and massive in such a short time, it would have had to convert gas into stars at a frenetic pace, a stellar “baby boom” that we did not believe was possible so soon.
This would force us to rewrite the initial chapters of galactic evolution. Did galaxies form their first stars much faster than our models predict? Or are we facing an object of a completely different nature?
There are other hypotheses, equally bold: Capotaur could not be a galaxy, but a supermassive black hole in its earliest phase, enveloped in a dense cloud of hydrogen which, as it revolves around it, shines with an intensity that imitates a distant galaxy.
The study on Capotaur has already been submitted for peer review in the prestigious journal Astronomy & Astrophysics and is available to the entire scientific community on the arXiv server. The next crucial step is confirmation. Astronomers will use JWST and other instruments to obtain a spectrum of the object: breaking down its light like a rainbow. This analysis is the ultimate test that can accurately measure your actual distance.
While we wait for that verdict, Capotauro has already accomplished one mission: to remind us that the universe is full of surprises. Whether a mirage, a strange neighbor, or a genuine fossil of the cosmic dawn, this astronomical “Trojan horse” has opened a gap of wonder in our knowledge, challenging us to look further and question everything we thought we knew about the infancy of the cosmos.