“The Beginning of a New Era”: NASA’s James Webb Spots Three ‘Red Monsters’ in the Early Universe – The Daily Galaxy –Great Discoveries Channel

Astronomers using James Webb have uncovered something astonishing in the early universe—colossal galaxies forming stars at a rate never seen before. These so-called “red monsters” are rewriting what scientists thought they knew about galaxy evolution.The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) continues to reshape our understanding of the early universe. A new study has uncovered “red monsters”—enormous, star-rich galaxies that challenge astronomers’ expectations. These findings suggest that the first galaxies formed stars far faster than previously thought, marking the dawn of a new era in cosmic exploration.Since its launch, the JWST has revealed that the young universe was 10 to 100 times richer in galaxies than scientists had imagined. Even more surprisingly, some of these galaxies appeared larger and more structured than expected. At one point, researchers even believed they had found “impossible” galaxies, so massive that they exceeded the available matter for their formation. However, a reassessment of the data showed that these galaxies were actually closer than initially estimated, making them less massive than feared.But a recent study published in Nature goes even further: it confirms that several early galaxies grew at a rate far beyond what standard models predicted.Among the 36 massive galaxies studied in the JWST’s Fresco program, astronomers identified three exceptional objects now referred to as “red monsters”. These galaxies stand out because they converted nearly 50% of the available matter into stars, a rate 500 times higher than that of the Milky Way.According to Mengyuan Xiao, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Geneva and the study’s lead author, these findings indicate that early galaxies could form stars with an efficiency never seen before. “The red monsters are just the beginning of a new era in our exploration of the early universe,” she states.But how did these galaxies grow so large, so quickly? David Elbaz, an astrophysicist at the CEA and a co-author of the study, suggests that these objects might be located in densely populated regions, potentially serving as the precursors to galaxy clusters.Several theories could explain this extraordinary growth:But these explanations are still incomplete. “We still cannot reproduce a universe that was so structured so early on,” admits David Elbaz. To fully unravel this mystery, astronomers will need more observations and advanced simulations to refine their models.If gravity was stronger in the early universe , time could also be slower for those early galaxies , so they would have had more time to collect themselvesComment Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

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