It formed around 700 million years after the birth of the universe, after which it suddenly stopped creating new stars.

[2][4] It was first discovered in 2010 and identified as a Lyman-break galaxy using imaging by Oesch et al.,[5] but was too faint for spectroscopy observations – particularly at the rest-frame optical wavelengths necessary to confirm quiescence.

[4][2] The JWST's NIRSpec observed it to have a very blue spectrum with a U-V colour of 0.16 ± 0.03 mag, a Balmer break, and no nebular emission lines.

[1] Usually, such quenching of star formation occurs either in very low-mass galaxies, or much later in the universe's timeline.

However, the discovery implies that the current models of galaxy evolution may be incomplete or inaccurate.