ScientistPankaj: JWST's Puzzling Early Galaxies Don't Break Cosmology--But They Do Bend Astrophysics

Thursday, February 15, 2024

JWST's Puzzling Early Galaxies Don't Break Cosmology--But They Do Bend Astrophysics

View all Scientific American publications.

February 15, 2024

This week, our top story grapples with a cosmic mystery. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has found bunches of abnormally bulky and bright galaxies in the early universe—ones so hefty that scientists had struggled to explain how they could've grown so big so fast. Perhaps, some researchers thought, these overgrown galaxies were hinting that something fundamental was amiss with our most cherished models of cosmology. Now, JWST's predecessor the Hubble Space Telescope has weighed in, finding evidence that the bulky baby galaxies may merely be products of quirky astrophysics, rather than some mysterious gap in our fundamental knowledge of nature. That's good news for the scientific status quo—but perhaps a disappointment for theorists hoping to craft some new, paradigm-shattering advance in our cosmic understanding. Elsewhere this week, we have stories about the launch of yet another private U.S. lunar mission, the exciting prospects for space-based searches for gravitational waves, the strangeness of surreal numbers, and much more. Enjoy!

Lee Billings, Senior Editor, Space & Physics
@LeeBillings

Astrophysics

JWST's Puzzling Early Galaxies Don't Break Cosmology--But They Do Bend Astrophysics

Rather than ripping up our fundamental models of the universe, the unexpectedly big and bright galaxies spied in the early universe by JWST probably have astrophysical explanations

By Jonathan O'Callaghan

Black Holes

Space Lasers Will Seek a New Kind of Gravitational Waves

The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) will open a new era in astronomy that brings scientists to the brink of studying gravitational waves from the beginning of time

By Jonathan O'Callaghan

Mathematics

Surreal Numbers Are a Real Thing. Here's How to Make Them

In the 1970s mathematicians found a simple way to create all numbers, from the infinitely small to infinitely large

By Manon Bischoff

Space Exploration

Second Private U.S. Lander Launches to the Moon

Odysseus, a lunar lander built by the aerospace company Intuitive Machines, launched atop a SpaceX rocket on a mission to the moon's south pole

By Mike Wall,SPACE.com

Space Exploration

Second Private U.S. Moon Lander Readies for Launch

Intuitive Machines' IM-1 is aiming to be the first commercial mission to softly land on another celestial body—and the first to deliver NASA equipment to the moon

By Michael Greshko

Astronomy

Three Times That Solar Eclipses Transformed Science

From the discovery of new elements to the testing of novel theories of gravity, total solar eclipses have helped spark scientific progress for centuries

By Paul M. Sutter

Astronomy

See What the Solar Eclipse Will Look Like across Most of the U.S.

Even if you're not in the path of totality, the solar eclipse on April 8 will offer a show to nearly everyone across North and Central America

By Katie Peek

Astronomy

Planets Orbiting Dead Stars Foretell the Solar System's Far-Future Fate

Images of possible planets around white dwarf stars suggest that some gas-giant worlds survive the deaths of their stellar host

By Phil Plait

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"We showed that Hubble really doesn't give you much wiggle room to play around with cosmology. That means the source [of the ultramassive galaxies] is very likely astrophysics."

Nashwan Sabti, an astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University, on new constraints for anomalously hefty galaxies observed in the early universe

FROM THE ARCHIVE

JWST's First Glimpses of Early Galaxies Could Break Cosmology

The James Webb Space Telescope's first images of the distant universe shocked astronomers. Is the discovery of unimaginably distant galaxies a mirage or a revolution?

By Jonathan O'Callaghan | September 2022

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