Photometric detection at 7.7 μm of a galaxy beyond redshift 14 with JWST/MIRI

Jakob M Helton; George H Rieke; Stacey Alberts; Zihao Wu; Daniel J Eisenstein; Kevin N Hainline; Stefano Carniani; Zhiyuan Ji; William M Baker; Rachana Bhatawdekar; Andrew J Bunker; Phillip A Cargile; Stéphane Charlot; Jacopo Chevallard; Francesco D'Eugenio; Eiichi Egami; Benjamin D Johnson; Gareth C Jones; Jianwei Lyu; Roberto Maiolino; Pablo G Pérez-González; Marcia J Rieke; Brant Robertson; Aayush Saxena; Jan Scholtz; Irene Shivaei; Fengwu Sun; Sandro Tacchella; Lily Whitler; Christina C Williams; Christopher N A Willmer; Chris Willott; Joris Witstok; Yongda Zhu

doi:10.1038/s41550-025-02503-z

Photometric detection at 7.7 μm of a galaxy beyond redshift 14 with JWST/MIRI

Nat Astron. 2025;9(5):729-740. doi: 10.1038/s41550-025-02503-z. Epub 2025 Mar 7.

Authors

Jakob M Helton¹, George H Rieke¹, Stacey Alberts¹, Zihao Wu², Daniel J Eisenstein², Kevin N Hainline¹, Stefano Carniani³, Zhiyuan Ji¹, William M Baker^{4

5}, Rachana Bhatawdekar⁶, Andrew J Bunker⁷, Phillip A Cargile², Stéphane Charlot⁸, Jacopo Chevallard⁷, Francesco D'Eugenio^{4

5}, Eiichi Egami¹, Benjamin D Johnson², Gareth C Jones⁷, Jianwei Lyu¹, Roberto Maiolino^{4

5

9}, Pablo G Pérez-González¹⁰, Marcia J Rieke¹, Brant Robertson¹¹, Aayush Saxena^{7

9}, Jan Scholtz^{4

5}, Irene Shivaei¹⁰, Fengwu Sun¹, Sandro Tacchella^{4

5}, Lily Whitler¹, Christina C Williams¹², Christopher N A Willmer¹, Chris Willott¹³, Joris Witstok^{4

5}, Yongda Zhu¹

Affiliations

¹ Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ USA.
² Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian, Cambridge, MA USA.
³ Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy.
⁴ Kavli Institute for Cosmology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
⁵ Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
⁶ European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC), European Space Agency (ESA), Madrid, Spain.
⁷ Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
⁸ Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, Sorbonne Université, CNRS, UMR 7095, Paris, France.
⁹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, London, UK.
¹⁰ Centro de Astrobiologia (CAB), CSIC-INTA, Madrid, Spain.
¹¹ Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA USA.
¹² NSF's National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, Tucson, AZ USA.
¹³ NRC Herzberg, Victoria, British Columbia Canada.

Abstract

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has spectroscopically confirmed numerous galaxies at z > 10. While weak rest-frame ultraviolet emission lines have only been seen in a handful of sources, the stronger rest-frame optical emission lines are highly diagnostic and accessible at mid-infrared wavelengths with the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) of JWST. We report the photometric detection of the distant spectroscopically confirmed galaxy JADES-GS-z14-0 at $z = 14.3 2_{- 0.20}^{+ 0.08}$ with MIRI at 7.7 μm. The most plausible solution for the stellar-population properties is that this galaxy contains half a billion solar masses in stars with a strong burst of star formation in the most recent few million years. For this model, at least one-third of the flux at 7.7 μm originates from the rest-frame optical emission lines Hβ and/or [O iii]λ λ4959, 5007. The inferred properties of JADES-GS-z14-0 suggest rapid mass assembly and metal enrichment during the earliest phases of galaxy formation. This work demonstrates the unique power of mid-infrared observations in understanding galaxies at the redshift frontier.

Keywords: Early universe; Galaxies and clusters.