James Webb may have Broken the Universe

Or rather the discovery of 6 "mature" Galaxies by a team of scientists looking at the Webb Deep Field data from last year may have broken our understanding of the Universe , its age and how Galaxies form.

The newly discovered Galaxies existed 500 to 700 million years after the Big Bang so their size and maturity is a bit of a problem considering the time frame in which they must have formed , more work needs to be done to make sure the Galaxies are actually Galaxies and not just Super Massive Black Holes or something more exotic but if confirmed our understanding of the Universe wouldn't be as set in stone as some might think.

Nelson was peering at a postage stamp-sized section of one image when she spotted something strange: a few “fuzzy dots” of light that looked way too bright to be real.

“They were so red and so bright,” Nelson said. “We weren’t expecting to see them.”

She explained that in astronomy, red light usually equals old light. The universe, Nelson said, has been expanding since the dawn of time. As it expands, galaxies and other celestial objects move farther apart, and the light they emit stretches out—think of it like the cosmic equivalent of saltwater taffy. The more the light stretches, the redder it looks to human instruments. (Light from objects coming closer to Earth, in contrast, looks bluer).

The team ran calculations and discovered that their old galaxies were also huge, harboring tens to hundreds of billions of sun-sized stars worth of mass, on par with the Milky Way.

These primordial galaxies, however, probably didn’t have much in common with our own.

“The Milky Way forms about one to two new star every year,” Nelson said. “Some of these galaxies would have to be forming hundreds of new stars a year for the entire history of the universe.”

Nelson and her colleagues want to use James Webb to collect a lot more information about these mysterious objects, but they’ve seen enough already to pique their curiosity. For a start, calculations suggest there shouldn’t have been enough normal matter—the kind that makes up planets and human bodies—at that time to form so many stars so quickly.
www.sciencedaily.com...

a reply to: gortex

Theory meet reality. Reality this is theory.

There are many who want to argue about how the entire universe could come to be from something the size of a quark. That doesn’t matter (hehe, words are funny!). But having to keep on adding more and more to your thesis might indicate a lack of understanding which is my view point.

Well, here is more lumps in your gravy!

Makes you wonder about cosmogenesis and how the soup ended up here!

You can think about “what if there was something else here, like gravity, before the Big Bang?” Maybe even, what if two gravity strings crossed and they caused the Big Bang?

That would turn our understanding of space-time around and maybe make FTL possible!

Just by looking at old light from before the earth even formed!

Kind of makes you stop and think twice about throwing that cigarette butt on the ground, huh?

More data, more ideas, more to explain, but not quite broken!

The mind is a terrible thing to taste!!

What if they (6 galaxies) were from somewhere else's Big Bang?

a reply to: gortex

Perhaps the Big Bang was not as uniform as theorized?

Instead of a relatively even distribution ejecta, perhaps there were "lumps and clumps" of energy/matter formed at the forefront of the Shockwave, maybe even formed as a result of the structure of the shockwave itself (induced quantum instabilities, maybe)?

originally posted by: nerbot
What if they were from somewhere else's Big Bang?

Our understanding of the age of the universe is based on how far we can look ?

So we get better glasses that can look further and then we think the universe just got older.

Perhaps we just need better glasses, perhaps there is no end.

a reply to: Mantiss2021

The current thought is that the universe was a hot plasma soup where it was too energetic for atoms to form.

But we can see “structures” where galaxies cluster together in long strands.

So even now there is thought that there was structure in the earliest stages of the Big Bang.

Having entire galaxies before they were supposed to be able to have formed seems to indicate that it was not a homogeneous plasma soup.

In other words, “Lucy, you have some splainin’ to do!”

Cool...but I was hoping that the Webb telescope peered so far into the universe that it caught an image of the backside of itself.

Kidding aside, maybe they should consider the possibility that THE big bang may have actually been multiple bangs of lesser magnitude. Or possibly some other unknown anomaly that is crating a lensing effect to make them seem larger. Just spit balling here, this stuff is well outside my wheelhouse of knowledge.

a reply to: gortex

Broken "their" understanding of the universe... Misunderstanding something as massive as the universe is easy to do when you spend your entire life overanalyzing and overthinking everything.

The James Webb telescope is quite an impressive machine. As egotistical and never-wrong as scientists are, it's even making them rethink everything. I love it.

a reply to: gortex

Our "understanding" of the universe has never been set in stone anyway. Just like our "understanding" of other things I could mention. No doubt, there are many more surprises to come.

a reply to: Klassified

Our "understanding" of the universe has never been set in stone anyway.

I agree but you have to admit the ages of both our galaxy and the Universe are recited like Gospel by many in the science community.

originally posted by: gortex
...more work needs to be done to make sure the Galaxies are actually Galaxies and not just Super Massive Black Holes or something more exotic but if confirmed our understanding of the Universe wouldn't be as set in stone as some might think.

Ummm... you think our current level of understanding of the nature of the universe is anywhere even remoetly near 'set in stone'???

Dude.

a reply to: tanstaafl

Ummm... you think our current level of understanding of the nature of the universe is anywhere even remoetly near 'set in stone'???

"but if confirmed our understanding of the Universe wouldn't be as set in stone as some might think."

Erm , No.

a reply to: gortex

I don’t understand how we can date universal objects like galaxies. Where is the relativity?

Would the “age” of that galaxy not depend on the black holes, matter, etc present that would change the “time” that galaxy experiences compared to other galaxies?

How do we reconcile this when viewing universal objects light years away?

This has also been my thought with the whole universe expanding argument - don’t think it’s accelerating - think we are seeing the difference in time dilation as objects move further away from each other.

Likely just an uneducated rant but if anyone can point me in the direction to look for answers to these I would appreciate it.

a reply to: Framesend

As I understand it they can tell the distance from the light we receive , light that has traveled a long distance gets stretched as it travels shifting it to the red end of the spectrum , I guess complex math takes over from there.

originally posted by: gortex
a reply to: Framesend

As I understand it they can tell the distance from the light we receive , light that has traveled a long distance gets stretched as it travels shifting it to the red end of the spectrum , I guess complex math takes over from there.

Thanks! Yeah this led me to “gravitational lensing” which I think helps describe some of what I’m talking about. The rest is likely me needing to understand the concept of “space-time” better.

We're too low on the technology scale to definitively say anything with regards to the Universe beyond the basic identifieble elements.

I think, like Ancient Civilizations and the true age of Humankind, we're going to find things in space that will redefine everything.

As technology grows, so does our reach and vision.

a reply to: gortex

my best reply would be along the lines of the theorists erring in not factoring in the Period of time the universe was in the State-of-Inflation... thus the unexpected red-shift and stellar evolution far beyond 400-700MY after Big Bang starting

Our understanding of how old the universe is comes from the CMB and by looking at the farthest stars compared to closer stars and making the calculations to determine how much time has passed for it to have shifted from blue to red. The Hubble dude made the discovery that hey space also expands and that can effect things. I think that we are still not fully understanding how much space expands and how fast it does. My theory is that space accelerates at a rapid rate then decelerates then accelerates again it does this at a regular interval. We are now seeing that our current model is incomplete, as we are able to actually see farther back instead of relying on math to "see" everything. We base the expansion rate on the existing data from telescopes that aren't able to see as far as newer ones. The next telescope NASA has planed is probably going to push that date even farther back.
a reply to: Spacespider

originally posted by: Spacespider
Perhaps we just need better glasses, perhaps there is no end.

Perhaps there is "another" and because we are meglomanic, we believe it's ours by nature.

And vice-versa.

infinitum.

a reply to: gortex

So if the universe is broken shouldn't we get some Crazy glue and stick it back together ........