If you want to know what happened in the earliest years of the universe, you are going to need a very big, very specialized telescope. Much to the joy of astronomers and space fans everywhere, the world has one – the James Webb Space Telescope. In this episode, we talk to three experts about what astronomers have learned about the first galaxies in the universe and how just six months of data from James Webb is already changing astronomy.

Featuring Jeyhan Kartaltepe, Associate Professor of Astrophysics at Rochester Institute of Technology, Jonathan Trump, Associate Professor of Physics at University of Connecticut and Michael J. I. Brown, Associate Professor in Astronomy at Monash University.

This episode was produced by Katie Flood and Daniel Merino, with sound design by Eloise Stevens. It was written by Katie Flood and Daniel Merino. Mend Mariwany is the show’s executive producer. Our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. Full credits for this episode are available here. Sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.

Further reading:

• James Webb Space Telescope: what astronomers hope it will reveal about the beginning of the universe – podcast
• BlueWalker 3, an enormous and bright communications satellite, is genuinely alarming astronomers
• Is the James Webb Space Telescope finding the furthest, oldest, youngest or first galaxies? An astronomer explains
• Two experts break down the James Webb Space Telescope’s first images, and explain what we’ve already learnt