JWST Might Have Spotted the First Dark Matter Stars

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July 20, 2023

This week, our top story details the debate over a tantalizing preliminary result from NASA's JWST observatory—the potential detection of gargantuan stars in the early universe that shine via the annihilation of dark matter rather than conventional thermonuclear fusion. Theorists have speculated for years that such bizarre objects could arise in the hot, dense conditions that prevailed not long after the big bang, but evidence for their existence has been scarce at best. This latest study focused on nine far-distant objects glimpsed by JWST, each presumably a galaxy. On closer inspection, however, three of the nine objects showed signs they could in fact be star-like "point sources" rather than diffuse collections of countless stars, despite being as bright as an entire galaxy. Further follow-ups with JWST should resolve the mystery, one way or another. Elsewhere this week, we have stories on inequalities among infinities, the stunted flow of time shortly after the big bang, stunningly powerful solar flares, and much more. Enjoy!

Lee Billings, Senior Editor, Space & Physics

Astrophysics JWST Might Have Spotted the First Dark Matter Stars Stars fueled by the self-annihilation of dark matter might have been spotted for the first time by JWST By Stephanie Pappas

Defense What the Film Oppenheimer Probably Will Not Talk About: The Lost Women of the Manhattan Project Hundreds of the scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project were women. They were physicists, chemists, engineers and mathematicians. Today we bring you the story of one of them. By Katie Hafner,Erica Huang,The Lost Women of Science Initiative

History Female Physicists Aren't Represented in the Media--And This Lack of Representation Hurts the Field The Manhattan Project wouldn't have been possible without the work of many accomplished female scientists By Carl Kurlander,Chandralekha Singh,The Conversation US

Mathematics Infinity Is Not Always Equal to Infinity There are infinite real and natural numbers—yet real numbers exceed natural numbers thanks to the mind-bending logic of infinities By Manon Bischoff

Cosmology Time Flowed Five Times Slower Shortly after the Big Bang Voracious black holes feeding on matter in the early universe display the curious spacetime phenomenon known as time dilation By Lucy Tu

Astrophysics Stunning, Hours-Long Solar Flare Unleashes Plasma Blob A trio of solar flares from a departing sunspot include one major flare that lasted several hours By Meghan Bartels

Agriculture Robotic Bees Could Support Vertical Farms Today and Astronauts Tomorrow The buzzy industry of robotic pollinators is setting its sights on indoor farms for urban—and extraterrestrial—environments By Molly Glick

Astrophysics Ultracold Gases Can Probe Neutron Star Guts Earth-based analogs are opening new frontiers in studies of the superdense interiors of neutron stars By Katie McCormick,Knowable Magazine

Aerospace India Aims for the Moon with Launch of Chandrayaan-3 After a failure in 2019, India's second attempt to land on the moon comes as the nation signs on to a U.S.-led plan to shape future global lunar activities By Jatan Mehta

Astronomy Meet the Stars of the 'Summer Triangle' Get to know the stellar trio behind one of the most iconic sights in summer's night sky By Phil Plait

Artificial Intelligence Should We Care About AI's Emergent Abilities? Here's how large language models — or LLMs — actually work.  By Sophie Bushwick,George Musser,Elah Feder | 12:45

QUOTE OF THE DAY "It looks like the sun in terms of its surface temperature, but it's a billion times as bright. It could be as bright as an entire galaxy of fusion-powered stars." Katherine Freese, an astrophysicist at the University of Texas at Austin, on the possible appearance of dark matter-powered stars.

FROM THE ARCHIVE How an Article about the H-Bomb Landed Scientific American in the Middle of the Red Scare At one time this magazine tangled with the FBI, the Atomic Energy Commission and Joseph McCarthy By Alfred W. McCoy | September 2020

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