Astronomers using the Large Binocular Telescope in southeastern Arizona have identified a rare “fossil” or relic galaxy roughly 3 billion light-years from Earth. Initial spectroscopic and imaging work shows the system has remained largely unchanged for about 7 billion years, offering an unusually pristine snapshot of conditions in the early universe. Only a handful of such objects have been confirmed to date. Because their stars formed quickly and the galaxies then stopped evolving, relic systems preserve chemical and structural signatures that models predict for the first massive galaxies. Researchers say the discovery should help refine competing theories of how galaxies grow through mergers and star formation. Further observations are planned with space- and ground-based telescopes to measure the galaxy’s star-formation history, dark-matter profile and elemental abundances. The international team’s findings were released on 8 July and are being prepared for peer-review publication.