The Webb telescope discovers amazing massive galaxies from the early universe

(CNN) – Astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to go back in time to the early days of the universe, and they discovered something unexpected.

The space observatory has discovered six massive galaxies that existed between 500 and 700 million years after the Big Bang that created the universe. According to a new study published Wednesday in the academic journal natureThe discovery completely contradicts existing theories about the origin of galaxies.

“These objects are much larger than anyone expected,” says Joel Lega, co-author of the study and assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State University. “We expected to find only young, young galaxies at this time, but we discovered mature galaxies like our own in what was previously understood to be the dawn of the universe.”

The telescope observes the universe in infrared light, invisible to the naked eye, and is able to detect the faint light of ancient stars and galaxies. By looking out into the distant universe, the observatory can essentially look back in time about 13.5 billion years ago (scientists have determined that the universe is about 13.7 billion years old).

“The revelation that the formation of giant galaxies began much earlier in the history of the universe upends what many of us thought was established science,” Lega says. “We have informally called these beings the Universe Shatterer, and so far they have lived up to their name.”

Galaxies are so massive that they contradict 99% of models representing the oldest galaxies in the universe, which means scientists have to rethink how galaxies form and evolve. Current theory suggests that galaxies began as small clouds of stars and dust that grew larger over time.

“We first looked at the very beginning of the universe and had no idea what we were going to find,” Lega said. “It turns out that we’ve found something so unexpected that it creates problems for science. It calls into question the full picture of the formation of the first galaxies.”

Survey of the first galaxies

Leja and her colleagues began analyzing Webb’s data, along with the telescope’s first high-resolution images, as soon as they were published in July. The galaxies appeared as large points of light, and the team was surprised to see them. So much so that they thought they had made a mistake in interpreting the data.

A journey into the cosmos like never before, with the best images of 2022 from the James Webb Telescope

“When we got the data, everyone started investigating and these huge things came out very quickly,” Lega said. “We started doing modeling and trying to figure out what it was, because it was so big and shiny.

My first thought was that we had made a mistake and that we would find him and move on with our lives. But we haven’t found that bug yet, despite trying many times.”

One way to determine why galaxies are growing so quickly, Lega said, is to take a spectroscopic image of the galaxies, which involves splitting the light into different wavelengths to identify the different elements, as well as determining the actual distance of the galaxies. The spectroscopic data will provide a more detailed view of the galaxies and their impressive size.

“The spectrum will tell us right away whether or not these things are real,” Lega said. “It will show us its size and its dimension. The funny thing is we have all these things that we hope to learn from James Webb and this one was nowhere near the top of the list. We found something we had never thought of asking the universe, and it happened a lot faster than I could have imagined, but here we are.” That.”

It’s also possible that the galaxies identified with Webb’s data are actually something else entirely.

“This is our first look so far, so it’s important that we open our minds about what we’re looking forward to,” Lega said. “Although the data suggests that these are likely galaxies, I think there is a real possibility that some of these objects could turn out to be hidden supermassive black holes. In any case, the amount of mass we detected means that the known mass in stars in these The period of our universe is up to 100 times larger than we previously thought. Even if we cut the sample in half, it’s still an amazing change.”