APA 7: Sonsuzluk Eldiveni’nden Örümcek-Evrenine Geçiş’e: Bu Altı Galaksinin Asla Var Olmaması Gerekiyordu. (2023, June 18). PerEXP Teamworks. [Article Link]
In a new study, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has discovered six mysterious galaxies that, according to our understanding of cosmological theory, should not exist in a monument way.
How did all these galaxies form?
Exactly how and when galaxies formed has always been a matter of debate, but some studies have shown that this process may have begun 200 million years after the Big Bang. This is most likely the case in the Milky Way Galaxy, where the Earth and therefore all of us are located. According to NASA, the Milky Way is 13.6 billion years old, and the universe itself is 13.8 billion years old. [1]
The substances that make up stars and smaller galaxies are coming together to form larger galaxies or are being collected through decoupling. The Milky Way, which has been growing for billions of years, has experienced a similar situation. In particular, scientists believe that in the past, the Milky Way merged with many other galaxies, including the Sausage Galaxy and the Kraken Galaxy (Merger), both of which occurred in the last 11 billion years and whose existence can still be proven on paper. In other words, although the Milky Way Galaxy is old, it has not been as large as it is today for the 13.6 billion years of its existence. Billions of years of accumulation and unification were required for its size to reach its current level. What makes the existence of the six newly discovered galaxies impossible is that they are very large, although they are young according to measurements. In other words, each of them owes their existence to an unusual “Canon activity”. The six identified potential galaxies were estimated by the team to have formed about 500–700 million years after the Big Bang. [2]
A little stone can upset a large cart
It’s okay that galaxies exist at this time. After all, the Milky Way is estimated to be older, and last year, scientists discovered four galaxies that formed 350 million years after the Big Bang. However, these six galaxies are very large for their age and significantly overshadow the other four galaxies. It is estimated that these six galaxies contained the same number of stars at that time as the Milky Way does now. Considering that the Milky Way has accumulated so many stars only after billions of years of merging and accumulation, it is surprising that such enormous galaxies exist even 1 billion years after the Big Bang. [3]
Disparate possibilities
What if they have not grown through unification or accumulation? Maybe they just formed stars naturally. After all, galaxies can do this. On average, one or two stars form in the Milky Way every year. However, this is also illogical because, in order for these six galaxies to have produced hundreds of new stars every year during the whole history of the universe, they would have had to have produced thousands of them. It’s not something to exaggerate. It is estimated that the Milky Way Galaxy has about 400 billion stars, and these six galaxies should have a similar amount of stars. [4]
So, yes, they really should have created as many stars as mentioned. Even if they could do that, it’s still impossible for them to exist. Because obviously, as far as the current scientific understanding of the universe is concerned, the amount of baryonic matter (The opposite of dark matter, roughly “Normal matter”) that existed in the universe at that time was not close enough to feed galaxies. Simply put: There was not enough matter to form six large galaxies so quickly. Erica Nelson, co-author of the study, said in a statement, “It’s bananas.”, “Just in the early stages of the universe, you wouldn’t expect it to organize itself so quickly. These galaxies were not supposed to exist at that time.”. The bottom line is that these six galaxies are “Anomalies,” like Miles Morales being Spider-Man in Earth-1610B. [5]
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With great power comes great responsibility
To determine whether these objects are galaxies at all, more study is still required. There’s always a margin for error. Some of them could either be a calculation error or a hidden supermassive black hole. If even one out of six is a galaxy, it means that we are extremely wrong about some basic details about the universe. In addition, this file also has implications for future research. Currently, computer simulation models of the universe are usually based on details such as the mass of stars (Or, in other words, the total mass of stars in galaxies). But if large galaxies like these existed a very long time ago, we may need to reevaluate how we program these models that reflect our understanding of the cosmos. As a result, these celestial objects, which we can refer to as the “six stones of the Infinity Glove,” are just one of the several incredible discoveries made possible by the James Webb Space Telescope that continue to teach us more about the universe. [6]
Resources
- WEBSITE Grossman, L. (2023, February 22). The James Webb telescope found six galaxies that may be too hefty for their age. Science News. [Science News]
- JOURNAL Labbé, I., Van Dokkum, P. G., Nelson, E. J., Bezanson, R., Suess, K. A., Leja, J., Brammer, G. B., Whitaker, K. E., Mathews, E., Stefanon, M., & Wang, B. (2023). A population of red candidate massive galaxies ~600 Myr after the Big Bang. Nature, 616(7956), 266–269. [Nature]
- WEBSITE Pultarova, T. (2023, February 22). The James Webb Space Telescope discovers enormous distant galaxies that should not exist. Space.com. [Space.com]
- WEBSITE ScienceDaily. (2023, February 23). James Webb spots super old, massive galaxies that shouldn’t exist. ScienceDaily. [ScienceDaily]
- WEBSITE Labbe, I. (2023, February 23). ‘We just discovered the impossible’: Giant young galaxies shake up our understanding of the early universe. Astronomy Magazine. [Astronomy Magazine]
- JOURNAL Maksimova, N. G., Garrison, L. H., Eisenstein, D. J., Hadzhiyska, B., Bose, S., & Satterthwaite, T. E. (2021). AbacusSummit: a massive set of high-accuracy, high-resolution N-body simulations. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 508(3), 4017–4037. [Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society]
