Broadway

Complete News World

James Webb Telescope: Researchers are searching for tiny galaxies — and they’re experiencing a surprise

James Webb Telescope: Researchers are searching for tiny galaxies — and they’re experiencing a surprise

James Webb Telescope

Researchers are looking for baby galaxies — and they get a surprise

Galaxies take time to grow, which is a well-established scientific principle. So when looking back at the early days of the universe, researchers expected young galaxies. But instead they found giant galaxies.

published

These are six massive galaxies that can be seen from 540 million to 770 million years after the Big Bang. The images were taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.

via Reuters

  • The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered six giant galaxies from the early days of the universe.

  • The researchers did not expect this.

  • “This challenges the whole picture of how early galaxies formed,” says one of the scientists.

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have discovered six giant galaxies from the early days of the universe. They formed about 600 million years after the Big Bang and are much older than expected, Ivo Lappi of Swinburne University in Melbourne and colleagues wrote in an article published in the journal Nature on Wednesday. Each of the six objects is billions of times more massive than our sun.

The James Webb Telescope has discovered even older galaxies – some of which formed 300 million years after the Big Bang. The scientists wrote that the size and maturity of the galaxies now detected is astonishing. Labbe admitted that at first he and his colleagues didn’t believe the results. The objects are so big and bright that some of the team thought they had made a mistake. “We were kind of dumbfounded,” he wrote. The discovery must also be verified and confirmed.

Lappi explained that most galaxies in this period are small and growing slowly. So count on small galaxies, but not with such cutouts. “There are few monsters that reach maturity in a fast track. Why this is the case or how it works is unknown,” Labbe wrote in an email.

“become a problem”

His assistant, Joel Lega, of Penn State University, said the discovery upended some of the accepted scientific knowledge. “It turns out that we find something so unexpected that it becomes a problem for science. This challenges the whole picture of how early galaxies formed,” he explained.

Lega explained that the researchers are awaiting confirmation from sensitive spectroscopy and are cautious about classifying these candidates as massive galaxies. Some of the candidates may not be galaxies but supermassive black holes. Others may be smaller than currently thought.

Be prepared for surprises

The odds that at least some of them are giant galaxies are good, Lappi said. Next year will tell. But one thing is clear: anyone who works with James Webb has to say goodbye to his expectations and be prepared for surprises.

The James Webb telescope, built by the USA, Canada and the European Space Agency (ESA), was launched from French Guiana at the end of 2021 and has been peering into the depths of space 1.6 million km from Earth since last summer. Scientists hope to use the device, which costs ten billion dollars, to look back at the formation of the first stars and galaxies 13.7 billion years ago and gain new insights into the formation of the universe.

With the daily update, you stay up to date on your favorite topics and never miss any more news about current world events.
Receive the most important information directly in your mailbox every day.

(DPA/KLE)View comments