The first galaxies assemble
Stars stop forming alone and start gathering into the structures that still organise the universe.
- When
- Known to
- ± 50 million years
- Era
- First Light, Stelliferous
Clumps of dark matter draw in gas and the first stellar systems take shape — small, irregular and intensely star-forming, nothing like the ordered spirals of today. They grow by merging with one another, a process that continues for billions of years. Every galaxy now visible is descended from these fragments.