Posted on 02/27/2023 5:08:05 AM PST by Red Badger
The six “universe breakers” appear much larger than what scientists thought was possible at that time
Images of the six objects thought to be massive galaxies from the early universe NASA, ESA, CSA, I. Labbe (Swinburne University of Technology). Image processing: G. Brammer (Niels Bohr Institute’s Cosmic Dawn Center at the University of Copenhagen) Astronomers have identified what appear to be six massive galaxies from the infancy of the universe. The objects are so massive, that if confirmed, they could change how we think of the origins of galaxies.
The findings, published Wednesday in Nature, use data from the James Webb Space Telescope’s infrared-sensing instruments to picture what the universe looked like 13.5 billion years ago—a time when it was just 3 percent of its current age.
Just 500 to 700 million years after the big bang, the potential galaxies were somehow as mature as our 13-billion-year-old Milky Way galaxy is now.
The mass of stars within each of these objects totals to several billion times larger than that of our sun, according to the research. One of them in particular might be as much as 100 billion times our sun’s mass. For comparison, the Milky Way contains a mass of stars equivalent to roughly 60 billion suns.
“You shouldn’t have had time to make things that have as many stars as the Milky Way that fast,” says Erica Nelson, an astrophysicist at the University of Colorado Boulder and a co-author of the study to Lisa Grossman of Science News. “It’s just crazy that these things seem to exist.”
Researchers expected to find only very small, young galaxies this early in the universe’s existence. How these “monsters” were able to “fast-track to maturity” is unknown, says Ivo Labbé, an astrophysicist at Swinburne University of Technology in Australia and the study’s lead researcher, in an email to Marcia Dunn of the Associated Press.
According to most theories of cosmology, galaxies formed from small clouds of stars and dust that gradually increased in size. In the early universe, the story goes, matter came together slowly. But that doesn’t account for the massive size of the newly identified objects.
“The revelation that massive galaxy formation began extremely early in the history of the universe upends what many of us had thought was settled science,” says Joel Leja, an astronomer and astrophysicist at Penn State and a co-author of the study, in a statement. “We’ve been informally calling these objects ‘universe breakers’—and they have been living up to their name so far.”
Emma Chapman, an astrophysicist at the University of Nottingham in England who was not involved in the research, tells the Guardian’s Hannah Devlin that these findings, if confirmed, could change how we conceive of the early universe. “The discovery of such massive galaxies so soon after the big bang suggests that the dark ages may not have been so dark after all, and that the universe may have been awash with star formation far earlier than we thought,” she tells the publication.
Still, it might not be time to rewrite cosmology just yet: The researchers say it’s possible some of the objects could be obscured supermassive black holes, and that what appears to be starlight in the images could actually be gas and dust getting pulled in by their gravity.
“The formation and growth of black holes at these early times is really not well understood,” Emma Curtis-Lake, an astronomer at the University of Hertfordshire in England who was not part of the study, explains to Science News. “There’s not a tension with cosmology there, just new physics to be understood of how they can form and grow, and we just never had the data before.”
To verify their findings, the researchers could take a spectrum image of the objects they’ve pinpointed. This would help reveal how old they are. Galaxies from the early universe appear to us as very “redshifted”—meaning the light they emitted has been stretched out on its long journey to Earth. The higher the redshift value, the more the light has been stretched and the more distant and aged the galaxy is. With spectroscopy, scientists could determine whether their potential galaxies, or “high-redshift candidates,” are as old as they appear, or if they are just “intrinsically reddened galaxies” from a more recent time, says Ethan Siegel, a theoretical astrophysicist who was not involved in the study, to CNET’s Eric Mack.
While Leja agrees that more observations are needed to confirm the findings, he notes in the statement, “Regardless, the amount of mass we discovered means that the known mass in stars at this period of our universe is up to 100 times greater than we had previously thought. Even if we cut the sample in half, this is still an astounding change.”
How can that be....we already know everything including how much co2 should be in the universe.
The science is settled.
Algore said so.....................
Perhaps, like Adam, they were formed with apparent age...
If the observable universe is 93 billion light years, then how can it only be 13+ billion years old?
It’s amazing that there is so much we DON’T know about the universe.
God created the Universe with a Big Bang- that “science” is settled in my mind.
Each new tool we create to push back the boundaries of the heavens does just that- and leaves us with new questions just when we thought we had some answers.
COOL STUFF.
Beyond all the political hypocrisy this is an interesting topic. The galaxies they’re finding are over 85 billion light years away. But if the galaxy is only 13 billion years old then how are we seeing them? Something’s wrong with the Math here if these galaxies are travelling faster than the speed of light. It could be evidence of a ‘transparent’ or ‘dark’ matter around which the filaments of galaxies are forming. This would be an interesting paradox to resolve. What if it were possible to tap into that energy. If there’s something that already is, would we know about it?
That’s how far it is thought the edge of the observable universe has expanded in 13+ billion years. It is only possible to see about 13.7 billion light years, however.
Theory is wrong. Big deal. Analyze invalidities. Postulate new theory. Test new theory.
WHAT? THAT’S TOO MUCH WORK!.......................
Oh, the horror!!!
/s
Your theory has failed to accurately depict the state of the universe - sh!tcan it and start over.
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Genesis 1:1)
Thus saith the Lord, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the Lord that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself; (Isaiah 44:24)
He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heaven by his understanding. (Jeremiah 51:15)
The assumptions we make in talking about the distances between us and distant cosmic objects could easily be wrong...
Folks will put trail cameras up, and every now ND again, a curious animal will show up right next to the camera (approach it from an angle that can’t be seen) so that you can’t tell what it is, and will nose the camera, and move it sideways sometimes, and all you see is the nose, tongue, ears or whatever.
It would be funny if God or an angel did that to the telescope. Those in charge would freak out.
Job 38
New International Version
The Lord Speaks
38 Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:
2 “Who is this that obscures my plans
with words without knowledge?
3 Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.
4 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
6 On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
7 while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels[a] shouted for joy?
8 “Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,
9 when I made the clouds its garment
and wrapped it in thick darkness,
10 when I fixed limits for it
and set its doors and bars in place,
11 when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt’?
12 “Have you ever given orders to the morning,
or shown the dawn its place,
13 that it might take the earth by the edges
and shake the wicked out of it?
14 The earth takes shape like clay under a seal;
its features stand out like those of a garment.
15 The wicked are denied their light,
and their upraised arm is broken.
16 “Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea
or walked in the recesses of the deep?
17 Have the gates of death been shown to you?
Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness?
18 Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?
Tell me, if you know all this.
19 “What is the way to the abode of light?
And where does darkness reside?
20 Can you take them to their places?
Do you know the paths to their dwellings?
21 Surely you know, for you were already born!
You have lived so many years!
22 “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow
or seen the storehouses of the hail,
23 which I reserve for times of trouble,
for days of war and battle?
24 What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed,
or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?
25 Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain,
and a path for the thunderstorm,
26 to water a land where no one lives,
an uninhabited desert,
27 to satisfy a desolate wasteland
and make it sprout with grass?
28 Does the rain have a father?
Who fathers the drops of dew?
29 From whose womb comes the ice?
Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens
30 when the waters become hard as stone,
when the surface of the deep is frozen?
31 “Can you bind the chains[b] of the Pleiades?
Can you loosen Orion’s belt?
32 Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons[c]
or lead out the Bear[d] with its cubs?
33 Do you know the laws of the heavens?
Can you set up God’s[e] dominion over the earth?
34 “Can you raise your voice to the clouds
and cover yourself with a flood of water?
35 Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?
Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?
36 Who gives the ibis wisdom[f]
or gives the rooster understanding?[g]
37 Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?
Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens
38 when the dust becomes hard
and the clods of earth stick together?
39 “Do you hunt the prey for the lioness
and satisfy the hunger of the lions
40 when they crouch in their dens
or lie in wait in a thicket?
41 Who provides food for the raven
when its young cry out to God
and wander about for lack of food?
The Call of the Cosmos
...upends what many of us had thought was settled scienceSo supposedly long-settled theories about the formation of galaxies may not actually be settled after all? How do you like that? It does have a certain familiar ring to it.
It’s not going to change what I think about the origin of the universe-Gen 1
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