Space telescope uncovers massive galaxies near cosmic dawn
Astronomers have discovered what appear to be massive galaxies dating back to within 600 million years of the Big Bang, suggesting the early universe may have had a stellar fast-track that produced these “monsters.”
While the new James Webb Space Telescope has spotted even older galaxies, dating to within a mere 300 million years of the beginning of the universe, it's the size and maturity of these six apparent mega-galaxies that stun scientists. They reported their findings Wednesday.
Lead researcher Ivo Labbe of Australia's Swinburne University of Technology and his team expected to find little baby galaxies this close to the dawn of the universe — not these whoppers.
“While most galaxies in this era are still small and only gradually growing larger over time,” he said in an email, “there are a few monsters that fast-track to maturity. Why this is the case or how this would work is unknown.”
Each of the six objects looks to weigh billions of times more than our sun. In one of them, the total weight of all its stars may be as much as 100 billion times greater than our sun, according to the scientists, who published their findings in the journal Nature.
Yet these galaxies are believed to be extremely compact, squeezing in as many stars as our own Milky Way, but in a relatively tiny slice of space, according to Labbe.
Labbe said he and his team didn't think the results were real at first — that there couldn't be galaxies as mature as the Milky Way so early in time — and they still need to be confirmed. The objects appeared so big and bright that some members of the team thought they had made a mistake.
“We were mind-blown, kind of incredulous,” Labbe said.
The Pennsylvania State University's Joel Leja, who took
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