James Webb telescope captures ancient galaxies that theoretically shouldn't exist
"We looked into the very early universe for the first time and had no idea what we were going to find. It turns out we found something so unexpected it actually creates problems for science. It calls the whole picture of early galaxy formation into question," Leja said. James Webb previously captured images of even older galaxies that formed around 350 million years after the Big Bang. But they're tiny and don't challenge our knowledge of astrophysics.
For these six galaxies to appear old and massive means they were forming hundreds of stars a year shortly after the Big Bang. In comparison, the Milky Way only forms around one to two new stars every year. Further, these potential galaxies are about 30 times more compact in size than ours despite having as many stars.
The scientists admit that there's a possibility that the fuzzy red dots they saw are something else, such as faint quasars or supermassive black holes. They could also be smaller in reality compared to the projected size the scientists got from their calculations. The team needs more data and to verify their findings through spectroscopy, but they think they could haveAll products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company.
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