Black holes in Webb data allay threat to cosmology’s standard model

Context: Since NASA
launched the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) almost three years ago,
astronomers have been actively searching for clues about how galaxies grew in
the early universe. This universe was a dark place: there is no light from this
period to tell us how the first stars and galaxies formed; yet uncovering these
processes could help answer key questions like the role of dark matter in the
early universe. According to the standard model of cosmology, which attempts to
explain the universe’s origins and evolution, the first stars formed around
100-200 million years after the Big Bang and the first galaxies within the
first billion years but JWST was revealing massive, fully-developed galaxies,
that too in greater numbers than expected, only around 400-650 million years
after the Big Bang. This mismatch became a source of intrigue among
researchers, who had to figure out what was wrong with their standard model.

Key points

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Overview: When
astronomers recently pored through JWST, they were surprised to find monstrous
structures when the universe was only a few hundred million years old, instead
of infant galaxies.

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James Webb
Space Telescope (JWST): The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a
general-purpose observatory with a large aperture telescope optimised for
infrared observations and a suite of state-of-the-art astronomical instruments
capable of addressing many outstanding issues in astronomy.

Features of James Webb Space Telescope

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Observations: Galaxy cluster- A galaxy cluster that first
formed 4.6 billion years ago, offering a glimpse into the early universe.

Deepest infrared image- The
deepest and most detailed infrared image, showcasing some of the oldest and
most distant galaxies ever observed by scientists. The data from these images
will enable scientists to gain deeper insights into the mass, age, composition,
and evolutionary history of each of these ancient galaxies.

Monster Galaxies- James Webb Space Telescope
has identified six 'Monster' galaxies, which formed approximately 500-700
million years after the Big Bang.

The
identified galaxies are as old as the Milky Way, existing around 540-770
million years after the Big Bang, at a time when the universe was about 3% of
its current age.

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Research
& analysis: In the new study, researchers analysed data from the
JWST’s Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) Survey. They focused on
galaxies that existed when the universe was 650–1,500 million years old. According
to the team, one possible explanation for a larger number of massive galaxies
in the early universe is that these galaxies manufactured stars more
efficiently than the galaxies of today.