These objects are much more massive than anyone expected. Astrophysicist Joel Lyja, from Pennsylvania State University in the United States, the lead author of the study, said in a press release.
“We expected to find only young, young galaxies during this period, but we discovered mature galaxies like our own at what was previously thought to be the dawn of the universe.”
Unlike the beautiful images of other celestial objects taken by James Webb, which displayed an impressive wealth of aesthetic detail, the records of these primordial galaxies are little more than fuzzy dots tinted red to make them stand out. It’s a disappointment to the eyes, but not to researchers.
Such evolving galaxies, which appear to be outside normal time and space, have never before been observed in the cradle of the universe.
This was no small contradiction. The discovery is like finding parents and their children at the same moment in a story where the grandparents are still children. In a September op-ed in the New York Times, Brazilian theoretical physicist Marcelo Glazer of Dartmouth College and astrophysicist Adam
Frank, from the University of Rochester. In the commentary, both of them, who were not involved in the initial studies with James Webb’s data, say that the new information provided by the super telescope, along with other outstanding questions, could lead to a revision of cosmology.
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