For example, for a long time, scientists believed that the earliest and oldest galaxies in the universe were small, somewhat chaotic, and misshapen systems. But images captured by the jwst (Webb Space Telescope) show that these galaxies are surprisingly massive, not to mention well-balanced and well-shaped — a discovery that challenges and could rewrite long-term insights into the origins of our universe, The Washington Post reports. know.
“The models don’t predict this,” UC Santa Cruz astronomer Garth Illingworth told The Washington Post. “How did this happen when the universe was so early? You are How did so many stars form in such a short period of time?”
As WaPo explains, old pictures of the universe taken by the recently superseded Hubble Space Telescope seem to confirm the widely held belief that early galaxies were chaotic places. However, the James Webb telescope seems to suggest that these findings are an illusion based on Hubble’s limited capabilities.
Dan Coe of the Space Telescope Science Institute told The Washington Post: “We think of the early universe as a messy place with all these star-forming clumps, and everything was messy.” He later added that in James Before the Webb telescope was launched into orbit, the Hubble image “missed all the cooler stars and all the older stars. We’re seeing young babes.” “
While these findings have surprised the scientific community, they are not at all cause for alarm. Major technological advances in astronomy and other fields lead to large-scale scientific discoveries over a long period of time. Right now, it really feels like we’re at a watershed moment, where today’s discoveries may set the stage for future breakthroughs, even if they take decades.
In fact, a discovery like this means the JWST is doing what scientists want it to do – it’s revealing new and exciting things about our incredibly expanding universe, answering old questions, raising new problem.