Discovering a Mysterious Galaxy – “Pushing the Boundaries of Understanding”

The newly discovered galaxy contains too many stars for its age. The researchers were surprised that the galaxy shouldn't actually exist.

MELBOURNE – A research team has used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to make a discovery previously thought impossible: the telescope has discovered a galaxy in the early universe so massive that it should not have existed. Galaxy ZF-UDS-7329 contains more stars than the Milky Way, even though it formed 800 million years after the Big Bang. This means they formed without dark matter, even if the standard model of galaxy formation says otherwise.

“We tracked this particular galaxy for seven years, observing for hours with the two largest telescopes on Earth to find out its age,” recalls study leader Karl Glazebrook (Swinburne University of Technology). “But it was too red and too faint and we couldn’t measure it. “In the end, we had to leave Earth and use the James Webb Space Telescope to confirm its nature.” In the specialized magazine nature published.

How did galaxies form so quickly so early in the universe?

doctor. “We are now going beyond what was possible to confirm the oldest dormant massive monsters lying deep in the universe,” confirms Thymia Nanayakkara, who led the spectroscopic analysis of the James Webb Space Telescope data. Our current understanding of how galaxies form and evolve. The main question now is how these galaxies formed so quickly so early in the universe, and what mysterious mechanisms caused them to suddenly stop forming stars while the rest of the universe did.

The newly discovered galaxy confuses researchers because it contradicts the previous theory of galaxy formation. “The formation of galaxies is largely determined by how dark matter is concentrated,” explains co-author Claudia Lagos in one of the articles. notice. “The fact that these extremely massive galaxies appeared so early in the universe poses major challenges to our standard model of cosmology.”

Dark matter did not have time to form so early after the Big Bang

The research does not assume that dark matter, which is actually required for such massive galaxies, has actually had enough time to form. For this reason, the researcher emphasizes: “More observations are needed to understand how common these galaxies are and to help us understand how massive these galaxies really are.”

Study leader Glazebrook is pleased: “The James Webb Space Telescope has found more and more evidence of the formation of massive galaxies in early times. This result represents a new record for this phenomenon,” but the researcher also emphasizes: “Although it is very noticeable, it is only one object.” “But we hope to find more; and if we do, it will turn our ideas about galaxy formation upside down.” (unpaid bill)