Mysterious Brightness at Cosmic Dawn tagged posts

Bursts of Star Formation explain Mysterious Brightness at Cosmic Dawn

Artist conception of early starbursting galaxies. Stars and galaxies are shown in the bright white points of light, while the more diffuse dark matter and gas are shown in purples and reds. Image by Aaron M. Geller, Northwestern, CIERA + IT-RCDS

Intense flashes of light, not mass, resolve the puzzle of impossible brightness. When scientists viewed the James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) first images of the universe’s earliest galaxies, they were shocked. The young galaxies appeared too bright, too massive and too mature to have formed so soon after the Big Bang. It would be like an infant growing into an adult within just a couple years.

The startling discovery even caused some physicists to question the standard model of cosmology, wondering whether or not it should be upended.

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