NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has spotted a young galaxy dating to the early universe - called Firefly Sparkle because its gleaming star clusters resemble the bioluminescent bugs - in a discovery that is giving astronomers a peek at what our Milky Way may have looked like in its infancy.

Nicknamed the Firefly Sparkle, this galaxy existed just 600 million years after the Big Bang and gleams with 10 distinct star clusters.

For the first time, the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has detected and "weighed" a galaxy that not only existed about 600 million years after the Big Bang, but also has a mass that is similar to what our Milky Way galaxy's mass might have been at the same stage of development.

In an extraordinary breakthrough, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has revealed a galaxy gleaming with the birth of stars, offering an unprecedented glimpse into the early stages of galaxy formation.

"Our reconstruction shows that clumps of actively forming stars are surrounded by diffuse light from other unresolved stars," says astrophysicist Kartheik Iyer of Columbia University in the US. "This galaxy is literally in the process of assembling."

Mowla, who spotted the galaxy in Webb’s image, was drawn to its gleaming star clusters, because objects that sparkle typically indicate they are extremely clumpy and complicated. Since the galaxy looks like a ‘sparkle’ or swarm of fireflies on a warm summer night, they named it the Firefly Sparkle galaxy.

Nasa's James Webb Space Telescope has spotted a young galaxy dating to the early universe – called Firefly Sparkle because its gleaming star

Why is your discovery of the Firefly Sparkle galaxy important? Telescopes like JWST are essentially time machines. Since light from distant galaxies travels for a long time before it reaches our telescope,