NASA GSFC/CIL/Adriana Manrique Gutierrez
The James Webb Space Telescope has brought us many spectacular photos, but its real “work” is to take pictures as far as possible into the depths of the universe, trying to understand what the universe looked like when it was born. While photographing up close to the Big Dipper, astronomers discovered six galaxies that likely formed between 500 and 700 million years following the Big Bang. That means we’re seeing them as they were 13 billion years ago, and astronomers calculate they probably have as many stars as our own Milky Way galaxy.
However, according to existing theories of the formation of the universe, there should not have been enough matter in the universe when they formed for galaxies to have so many stars. However, since such a distant galaxy basically we can only see a large red dot and cannot see the details of the object, so basically the number of stars is just a guess, and astronomers cannot rule out that they are fainter quasars , or other possibilities such as supermassive black holes. The final confirmation still depends on spectral analysis to have a clearer result.
If they are really large galaxies like our own Milky Way and are as old as predicted, our theories regarding the early history of the universe may need to be reworked. Not only is there a problem of the amount of matter, but also the problem of star formation rate-our galaxy currently only forms 1~2 new stars every year, if only 500 to 700 million years following the big bang, they would have as many stars as the Milky Way If there are planets, the speed of formation must be hundreds of times faster than that of the Milky Way. Not only that, but these galaxies seem to be only regarding 1/30 the size of our Milky Way, so the structure of these galaxies is also intriguing.
At present, James Webb has actually photographed many objects that are confirmed to be early galaxies, the oldest of which can be only 350 million years following the birth of the universe. However, the small size of these early galaxies does not affect theories of the formation of the universe.Astronomers who are studying these new starsHope to announce next year what they are。
