The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered six massive galaxies from the early universe that challenge current theories of cosmology.
These objects date back to a time when the universe was only 3% of its current age, about 500-700 million years after the Big Bang.
These galaxies are much larger than previously assumed, as they are as mature as our own, but exist in the early universe.
According to scientists, these galaxies have stellar masses of up to ten billion times the mass of our sun, and one of them could be huge, equivalent to 100 billion times the mass of our sun.
If confirmed, these results will raise questions about scientists’ understanding of how the first galaxies formed.
Scientists describe these huge galaxies as “universal wreckers” because their existence shatters what scientists know about the beginnings of galaxies in our universe.
“These objects are much more massive than anyone expected,” said Joel Lega, associate professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State and co-author of the study. We only expected to find young, young galaxies at this point in time, but we did find mature galaxies like our own in what was previously understood to be the dawn of the universe.”
If confirmed, they suggest that our history of the early universe may have been wrong, and that galaxies grew much faster than expected. This will require changing either our models of the universe or our understanding of how galaxies form.
The observations come from the first set of data released from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, which is equipped with infrared sensors capable of detecting light from the oldest stars and galaxies.
While sifting through the images, Dr. Erica Nelson, of the University of Colorado Boulder and co-author of the study, spotted a series of “blurry dots” that appeared unusually bright and unusually red.
These galaxies appear to be about 13.5 billion years old, which makes them formed about 500 to 700 million years after the Big Bang.
Scientists warn that the distance and age of galaxies means that they cannot be completely sure of what they are.
The researchers said that some of them may be supermassive black holes, but with six candidates, it is possible that a number of them are actually galaxies, as it is believed.
“If one of these galaxies is real, it would push the boundaries of our understanding of cosmology,” Nelson said, noting that “another possibility is that these objects are a different type of exotic object, such as faint quasars, which would be interesting.”
Calculations indicate that the latter galaxies harbored tens to hundreds of billions of Sun-mass stars, putting them on par with the Milky Way.
Scientists explain that explaining the existence of such massive galaxies near the dawn of time will require scientists to reconsider either some of the basic rules of cosmology or in understanding how the first galaxies arose from small clouds of stars and dust.
The team plans to obtain spectrum images, which could provide more accurate distance information and allow for better estimates of mass.