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."

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

It's the first time that scientists have witnessed clumps of stars assembling to form a galaxy like our own Milky Way and holds clues as to how the Universe was formed. Scientists have named the distant galaxy Firefly Sparkle, because it also looks like a swarm of multi-coloured fireflies.

NASA's Webb Telescope 'weighs' galaxy Firefly Sparkle, revealing its mass and star formation processes 600 million years after the Big Bang.