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For any astronomers here, or others with the relevant knowledge of astrophysics, a question: this discovery would suggest the existence of a fully-formed galaxy at ~290 gigayears (Gyr), when the first stars are presumed to have emerged between 200 and 300 Gyr. How badly does this damage current models of early galaxy formation, and what new physics might it suggest?

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I wouldn't say it's too damaging yet. There is a general trend where these early galaxies are brighter than we had thought by simply extrapolating models that were built prior to JWST, but these make numerous assumptions on how efficiently stars can form and the properties of these stars. Mildly relaxing any of these assumptions can easily solve the problem within our current framework and not significantly change what happens later in the evolution of the Universe.

Your unit is wrong. Giga means billion. The universe is ~14 Gyr old.

You're entirely correct, my mistake; unfortunately I can't edit the comment any more.

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