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Six recently discovered galaxies could change the history of the universe.
The galaxies, as observed via the James Webb telescope, formed much earlier and much faster than scientists previously thought possible.
The six massive galaxies formed relatively soon after the big bang. The data in a new research report may overturn previous knowledge about, among other things, how long it took for large galaxies to be created.
The galaxies were probably created between 500 and 700 million years after the big bang, which is estimated to have occurred between 13.7 and 13.8 billion years ago. It is a revolutionary short time considering the continued history of the universe.
The so-called candidate galaxies also contain far more stars than scientists thought – one of them is believed to have around 100 billion stars.
The Milky Way is estimated to have roughly the same number of stars, which has taken the entire universe’s lifetime to create.
Previous theory
This is “crazy”, says Ivo Labbe, the lead author of the research report.
– According to previous theories, galaxies grow slowly and are small at the beginning of their existence, continues Labbe, active at Swinburne University in Australia, to AFP.
Independent measurements and further research are required before the data can be fully confirmed. The first study was published in the respected research journal Nature.
The discovery was made possible thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope’s ability to examine objects through infrared wavelengths that the human eye cannot see.
The telescope can look back about 13.5 billion years in time and thus study what happened not long after the birth of the universe through the big bang.
Co-researcher Joel Leja at Penn State University in the USA did not believe the data at first:
“The objects were much larger than anyone had expected. We thought we would find minimal baby galaxies at this point (in the history of the universe). But we discovered galaxies in the age of the absolute dawn of the universe that are as mature as our own Milky Way,” Leja wrote in a statement about the discovery.
James Webb has been in practical operation since the summer of 2022, and new technology makes it possible to look further away and under more difficult conditions than the previous Hubble Space Telescope.
Dark matter
The new discoveries open up new, possible lines of thought for how the universe was created. Part of it is so-called dark matter, which makes up a large part of the universe. It could be important in explaining the new discoveries, speculates Labbe.
If dark matter “clumps up” into an outer, invisible envelope of mass, a so-called halo, it can suck in gas from its surroundings. Galaxies can then form there, reasons Labbe further.
Such a theory can be linked to new findings that the universe is expanding faster than scientists previously thought.
– This is another sign that our previous model of the universe is cracking, says David Elbaz of France’s Atomic Energy Commission to AFP.
Elbaz is independent from the research group that discovered the new candidate galaxies. But he is well versed in research as one of the astrophysicists working with the European Space Agency’s Euclid telescope. According to the plans, it will be postponed until the summer.
And Euclid’s research mission is to explore dark matter and dark energy together with the James Webb Telescope.
– This can help us solve the mystery of the six galaxies, says Elbaz.
Facts
The James Webb Telescope
The James Webb telescope is the successor to the successful Hubble telescope.
It launched from the Kourou space base in French Guiana on Christmas Day 2021 and reached its destination in solar system orbit about a month later, whereupon its mirrors began to unfold.
The telescope is in orbit 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.
The telescope’s main mirror measures 6.5 meters in diameter (Hubble 2.4 meters) and has a focal length (focal length) of 131.4 meters. It has a total exposure area of 25.4 square meters. All in all, it weighs 6.5 tons.
It provides an incredibly detailed resolution, where you can observe objects the size of a coin at a distance of four miles.
The goal is for the telescope to be able to distinguish light from the very first galaxies that formed in the universe and provide a more detailed picture of these, to contribute to the understanding of how galaxies develop, how stars are born and die, and how planetary systems arise. One hopes for new findings about the Earth-like so-called exoplanets – and by extension about the origin of life.
The European Space Agency ESA, the US ditto Nasa and Canada’s CSA are collaborating on the space telescope. Researchers at Stockholm University, Chalmers and the Swedish company Spectrogon have partially developed the camera and spectrograph with which the telescope takes images.
On board there is also an antenna system for transmitting data to Earth.
The telescope has been named after James E Webb, who was head of NASA during the 1960s when the Apollo program was built up.
Source: Nasa
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