Analysis of JWST Data Finds - Old Galaxies in a Young Universe? (phys.org) 33
Two astrophysicists at Spain's Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias analyzed data from the James Webb Space Telescope — the most powerful telescope available — on 31 galaxies with an average redshift of 7.3 (when the universe was 700 million years old, according to the standard model). "We found that they are on average ~600 million years old old, according to the comparison with theoretical models based on previous knowledge of nearby galaxies..."
"If this result is correct, we would have to think about how it is possible that these massive and luminous galaxies were formed and started to produce stars in a short time. It is a challenge."
But "The fact that some of these galaxies might be older than the universe, within some significant confidence level, is even more challenging." The most extreme case is for the galaxy JADES-1050323 with redshift 6.9, which has, according to my calculation, an age incompatible to be younger than the age of the universe (800 million years) within 4.7-sigma (that is, a probability that this happens by chance as statistical fluctuation of one in one million).
If this result is confirmed, it would invalidate the standard Lambda-CDM cosmological model. Certainly, such an extraordinary change of paradigm would require further corroboration and other stronger evidence. Anyway, it would be interesting for other researchers to try to explain the Spectral Energy Distribution of JADES-1050323 in standard terms, if they can ... and without introducing unrealistic/impossible models of extinction, as is usually done.
The findings are published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
"If this result is correct, we would have to think about how it is possible that these massive and luminous galaxies were formed and started to produce stars in a short time. It is a challenge."
But "The fact that some of these galaxies might be older than the universe, within some significant confidence level, is even more challenging." The most extreme case is for the galaxy JADES-1050323 with redshift 6.9, which has, according to my calculation, an age incompatible to be younger than the age of the universe (800 million years) within 4.7-sigma (that is, a probability that this happens by chance as statistical fluctuation of one in one million).
If this result is confirmed, it would invalidate the standard Lambda-CDM cosmological model. Certainly, such an extraordinary change of paradigm would require further corroboration and other stronger evidence. Anyway, it would be interesting for other researchers to try to explain the Spectral Energy Distribution of JADES-1050323 in standard terms, if they can ... and without introducing unrealistic/impossible models of extinction, as is usually done.
The findings are published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Re: on average ~600 million years old old (Score:2)
I mean, why is that a simpler explanation than the age of the universe being wrong? We have really quite a lot of evidence that lambda CDM is not working right.
Please, no (Score:5, Insightful)
it would invalidate the standard Lambda-CDM cosmological model.
Oh please don't do that. It might force the revisiting of dark matter, dark energy and all the other cruft tacked on to save current theories.
And we're already pretty busy defending phlogiston.
</sarcasm>
Re:Please, no (Score:4, Funny)
Dark matter and dark energy is all the gunk God left in the universe's engine. Since we are an experiment, he didn't bother to change the filters.
Re: (Score:2)
You only have to do that after your first thousand billion years.
Re: (Score:1)
But we drove it rough.
Re:Please, no (Score:5, Interesting)
The vast majority of astrophysicists think dark matter exists because of multiple lines of observational evidence, some of which are listed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter#Observational_evidence [wikipedia.org]
Sure, it's weird, but nature doesn't owe us anything.
The article here is using redshift to infer the age of the universe when light from these galaxies was emitted and complex models involving star formation, stellar composition, etc. to estimate the age of the galaxies themselves. It's more likely something is off with the galaxy age estimate or our understanding of how early galaxies formed than Lambda-CDM as a whole being wrong. These are recent observations only enabled by the Webb telescope. They'll figure it out.
Re:Please, no (Score:4, Insightful)
The vast majority of astrophysicists think dark matter exists because of multiple lines of observational evidence, some of which are listed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter#Observational_evidence [wikipedia.org]
Sure, it's weird, but nature doesn't owe us anything.
Dark matter is not the problem. It is easy to imagine stuff which is not luminous, but still affecting galaxies. Dark Energy is the problem, invented to explain Supernova redshifts. I hope they get rid of it with this new evidence, forcing to rethink.
Re: (Score:2)
I replied to someone who claimed that dark matter is some of the "cruft tacked on to save current theories".
Re:Please, no (Score:4, Interesting)
My favorite answer is that the "big bang" is not unique. They don't occur often, but they do occur repeatedly. Possibly whenever the amount of matter within a light cone gets too sparse. So there would be *some* old pieces left around.
N.B.: Calling this a speculative model is giving it too much credit. It's just a Wild Ass Guess. But I don't know enough to convince myself that it's wrong.
Re: Please, no (Score:2)
that sounds similar to the traditional steady-state model. personally i would love for lambdaCDM to lose out to steady-state, but i think there is some inconvenient evidence against it.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, it's got similarities to the steady state model, but that model didn't include ANY "big bangs". Everything happened in a very incremental fashion. I believe that Hoyle imagined individual Hydrogen atoms spontaneously appearing when stuff got too sparse, but he might have had protons and electrons appearing separately. This is more like the model in Jack Chalker's "Well of Souls" series...just without the "We're living in a simulation" aspect. (And without claiming that we're the result of manipula
Re: (Score:1)
... or something like that starting-all-over.
Most plausible explanations: (Score:2)
1. Our models on galaxy formation are wrong.
2. Our universe sprang a leak into another.
3. The big bang model is wrong.
Can they measure the percent of heavy elements in the spectrum of such galaxies. More heavies are associated with later-generation stars.
Re: (Score:2)
Another ... what? The prefix "uni" means one. There cannot be more than one universe.
There is no known way to confirm other universes exist. That doesn't mean we can be sure they don't. It just means there can be no conclusive analysis of the possibility, because there is no evidence.
As for the "universe" word-play ... sorry but that means nothing. We named atoms from the Greek word atomos meaning "indivisible" -- but we now know they can in fact be divided. Sometimes we are premature with the names we choose.
Re: (Score:2)
Thisverse?
Better tools (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Propose an even better one, call it the Trump Telescope, and it gets instant funding.
Argumentum (Score:4, Interesting)
Physicist: Long involved complex theory with heavy math.
Astronomer: [Picture]
Picture wins.
Re: (Score:2)
Evidence wins.
FTFY
Maybe we are reading the clock incorrectly (Score:2)
If you think of an old school analog clock. Take a snapshot and if you donâ(TM)t know big hang from second hand you can read the time incorrectly. Maybe what we thought we hour hands were minute hands or something else, like a moon phase indicator. Not that the reality is anything as simplistic as that, just that we might be wrong in what we use to set time/date.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe...redshift doesn't tell us exactly what we think it tells us.
Time to change models (Score:4, Interesting)
Except, of course, a lot of people's careers (and prestige) depend on keeping it moving. So a first wave of observations show there's a problem. Let's handwave it through a mathematical construct we'll call dark matter. Then, a few decades later, here we go again. Not a problem, this time it'll be dark energy.
But that's all these are: mathematical construct dreamed up to keep the model alive.
Time to change the model !
I know one that explains all the discrepancies, that has 17 observational evidences. It has simulations that show early galaxies formations AND that explain the spiral structure formation (that mainstream phycisists can't explain).
It's called the Janus model. To keep the explanation short, it posits the existence of a simultaneous antimatter universe (whose interactions with ours is only through gravity). It makes Einstein's equation a special case of its own two modeling equations (the same way Einstein made Newton a special case of his own equation).
You can more about it here: https://januscosmologicalmodel... [januscosmo...lmodel.com]
Not news (Score:2)
Big bang didn't happen in emptiness- (Score:2)
Oops, sorry, mostly destroyed your universe by having ours pop in, no one got hurt, did they?
AI crap? (Score:1)
Re: AI crap? (Score:1)
Cosmonova (Score:1)
According to our current knowledge, it looks clear that our Universe (U_n) is expanding, and its expansion rate might be accelerating. Although this last point seems to be questionable according to recent studies.
Anyway, we can not exclude a Big Crunch scenario.
Should it happen, our Universe, U_n, and all its galaxies will start to shrink, up to a point where it might somehow "explode", a bit like a Supernova, but initiating a new Big Bang that will create a new Un