A team of scientists discovered it six “huge” first galaxies who question prior knowledge about their education and on the very origin of the universeaccording to a study published this Wednesday 22 in “nature”.
The research, conducted by the University of Pennsylvania (USA), shows that “these objects” are “much larger” than anyone could expect to find between 500 and 700 million years after the Big Bang.
“We only expected to find small, young galaxies in that time period, but we have found it mature galaxies like ours in what was previously understood to be the beginning of the universe“explains Joel Leja, one of the authors, in a statement.
The experts analyzed the data provided by the james webb space telescope focus on the past, with a tool that allows them to go back up to 13,500 million years in time, Leja recalls.
“This is the first time we’ve looked back that far, so it’s important to keep an open mind about what we’re seeing,” says the astronomer.
For this he warns that, although the information indicates that the objects mentioned “are probably galaxies”, there is a “real possibility” that “some” of these are “supermassive black holes”.
“However, the amount of mass we discovered means that the known mass of stars in this period of the universe is up to 100 times bigger than previously thoughtLeja points out.
The formation of massive galaxies soon after the Big Bang, he says, “upends” previous concepts, such as what were originally “little clouds of stars and dust” that “gradually grew over time.”
‘It seems we have discovered something so unexpected that it actually creates problems for science,’ says Leja, whose international team includes experts from the University of Valencia, Spain.
To confirm these findings, the researchers intend to take spectral images of these large galaxies to obtain information about their ‘true distances’ and the ‘gases and other elements’ that make them up.
“A spectrum will tell us immediately if these objects are real. It will show us how big they are and how far away they are,” concludes Leja.
Source: EFE
Source: Clarin
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