NASA’S James Webb Space Telescope has uncovered a previously-unobserved ‘country’ of galaxies from the universe’s early days.
In a new study published in Astrophysical Journal Letters, researchers say they have discovered galaxies that existed around 400 million years after the Big Bang.
2
2
And these galaxies are so bright, they apparently are making researchers rethink what we know about their formations.
“These observations just make your head explode,” said Paola Santini, one of the authors of a paper describing the new findings, in a statement.
“This is a whole new chapter in astronomy. It’s like an archaeological dig, and suddenly you find a lost city or something you didn’t know about. It’s just staggering.”
Scientists were able to uncover the ‘country’ of galaxies using Nasa’s newest observatory: the James Webb Space Telescope.
Thanks to James Webb, scientists have been able to observe stars and galaxies older than we have previously seen.
In the study, the researchers point out one of the newly-discovered galaxies, GLASS-z12, which is 50 million years older than the previous record holder at 350 million years old.
And age isn’t the only difference between these galaxies and the ones we have observed.
They are incredibly different shapes and they are also more compacted into spheres or discs that are smaller than our own.
Most read in Tech
Another peculiar feature of these galaxies is that they are converting gas into stars at a quicker rate than we are used to seeing.
This also means that they may have formed stars around 100 million years after the universe was born.
“We’ve nailed something that is incredibly fascinating. These galaxies would have had to have started coming together maybe just 100 million years after the big bang,” said Garth Illingworth of the University of California at Santa Cruz, a member of the research team, in a statement.
“Nobody expected that the dark ages would have ended so early. The primal universe would have been just one hundredth its current age. It’s a sliver of time in the 13.8 billion-year-old evolving cosmos.”
One of the observations that are leaving scientists perplexed, however, is the sheer brightness of these galaxies.
However, they are hoping that by looking at more of Webb’s observations, they can figure it out.
“Everything we see is new. Webb is showing us that there’s a very rich universe beyond what we imagined,” said Tommaso Treu, one of the investigators in a Webb program.
