The James Webb Telescope has been providing clearer views of celestial bodies and revealing hidden features since it began working last year. Now, according to Stady Made by an international team of astrophysicists, it may also completely change our understanding of the universe.
Looking at images taken by telescopes near the Big Dipper, scientists is found Six possible galaxies formed only 500 to 700 million years after the Big Bang. The prospect of them being nearly 13 billion years old wasn’t what made them strange, although they could have as many stars as the Milky Way according to the team’s calculations. Scientists have explained that it should not exist under the current cosmological theory, because there was not enough matter at that time for galaxies to form as many stars as ours.
What the scientists saw in the images were a few fuzzy but very bright spots of light that appeared red on our instruments, indicating that they were ancient. said Joel Lega, one of the study’s authors space Scientists typically expect to see young, young galaxies glowing blue when looking out into the ancient universe, because they appear to us as “things that formed recently from the primordial cosmic soup.” (Don’t forget that it takes time for light to reach Earth, so we’re essentially looking back in time when we view telescopic images.)
NASA, ESA, CSA, I. Labbe (Swinburne University of Technology). Image processing: G. Brammer (Center for Cosmic Dawn of the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen)
“We looked at the very early universe for the first time and had no idea what we would find. And it turns out that we found something so unexpected that it actually creates problems for science. It calls into question the whole picture of early galaxy formation,” Legga said. James Webb previously took pictures of older galaxies that formed about 350 million years after the Big Bang. But they are small and do not challenge our knowledge of astrophysics.
For these six galaxies to appear old and huge means that they were forming hundreds of stars a short year after the Big Bang. By comparison, the Milky Way forms about one or two new stars each year. Moreover, these potential galaxies are about 30 times smaller than our own despite containing many stars.
Scientists acknowledge the possibility that the fuzzy red dots they saw were something else, like faint quasars or supermassive black holes. It could also be actually smaller compared to the expected size that the scientists got from their calculations. The team needs more data and to verify their findings with spectroscopy, but they think they can get by Official confirmation sometime next year.
All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independently of the parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. All prices are correct at the time of publication.
“Reader. Infuriatingly humble coffee enthusiast. Future teen idol. Tv nerd. Explorer. Organizer. Twitter aficionado. Evil music fanatic.”