The Universe never ceases to surprise, and this time scientists are confronted with something new that challenges what we thought we knew about the Universe. galaxies. Three cosmic giants, nicknamed “red monsters”have been detected in remote regions of the cosmos.
An international team of scientists, in which the University of Valencia participated, carried out a discovery surprising at the beginning of the universe: 36 galaxies massive.
This discovery, made with the help of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescopechallenges current theories about galaxy formation and could change our understanding of the first billion years of cosmic history.
These are the new scientific discoveries
THE ultramassive galaxiesnicknamed “red monsters” because of their high dust content which gives them a reddish tonealready existed during the first billion years after the Big Bang. What baffles astronomers is that these galaxies have grown at an “unexpected” rate since then, reaching a size almost as massive as our own Milky Way.
The study, led by University of Geneva and recently published in the magazine Naturesystematically analyzed a complete sample of galaxies formed during the first billion years. The results revealed that the “red monsters” were much more efficient at forming stars than their later counterparts.
This discovery does not contradict the standard cosmological model, according to which galaxies form gradually within large areas. dark matter halos, but this raises questions about theories of galaxy formationespecially at the beginning of the Universe.
Meng Yuan Xiaoresearcher in the Department of Astronomy of the Faculty of Sciences of UNIGE and author of the study, believes that as the study of these galaxies deepens, new perspectives will be obtained on the conditions which shaped the first epochs of the universe. In addition, this approach will make it possible to obtain accurate estimates of the stellar mass of all galaxies and the future growth of the Universe.
A key tool for this discovery: the James Webb telescope
He James Webb Space Telescopelocated 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, played a fundamental role in this discovery. Its ability to observe the universe at infrared wavelengths allows it to peer into cosmic dust and observe otherwise invisible galaxies.
“Thanks to the unprecedented sensitivity of James Webb, These galaxies were identified immediately“, explains Mauro Stefanon, CIDEGENT researcher at the Department of Astronomy of the University of Valencia and co-author of the article, in a statement published on the official website of the University.
“The spectroscopic confirmation of these galaxies not only confirms their existence at these times, but also allows us to measure their stellar masses with great confidence. The combination of the large number of galaxies identified in a very small area of the sky and their high stellar masses indicates that about half of the gas they contain has been transformed into new stars,” adds Stefanon.
On the other hand, he points out that “the proportion is very high and this denotes such extremely efficient star formation at this time that challenges current models of galaxy formation and evolution“.
This unprecedented discovery This reminds us that the universe still holds many secrets to discover. The “red monsters” remind us how much there is still to learn.
