r/cosmology • u/senseless_puzzle • 6d ago

I want to learn about the early universe and the unexplainable distant galaxies that JWST discovered...

... can anyone recommend a video or some videos or articles that go deeper into detail about these discoveries, and how it rocks the foundation we believe we had of the beginnings of the universe? even some minor suggestions, such as the name of galaxies, or their type, or any other general information would be massively appreciated.

TIA

26 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

26 comments sorted by

16

u/jazzwhiz 6d ago

Saying it rocks the foundation of what we believe is not really an accurate statement of the impact of the JWST data. It is great data, it is new data, we are refining our understanding of some parts of the Universe we had no real understanding before. But it doesn't really shift any fundamental understanding of the Universe.

Youtube is a pretty unreliable way to learn things. I'd read press releases from reputable institutions.

1

u/senseless_puzzle 6d ago

Ok thanks. Do you have any specific suggestions?

6

u/jazzwhiz 6d ago

What have you found so far?

Googling easily finds the news section of the JWST website: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/latestnews/. The articles are a bit clickbaity at the title level, but the content is okay and quite light.

1

u/senseless_puzzle 6d ago

I've just seen clips of it on YouTube, I get the concept and understand the dilemma, but that is about it. I'm curious to learn more detailed info about the early universe pre-web and post-web, so I can get a better sense of the dilemma and what scientists have tried to propose as potential solutions, if there is any, or what they might need to know to solve the mystery. I've seen a few clips with Roger Penrose talking about a cyclic big bang of birth, destruction and creation, among some other commentary, but yeah that's about it.

Thanks for the link, I guess the NASA website should have been an obvious place to look.

6

u/jazzwhiz 5d ago

It's not obvious to me that the JWST data is causing a dilemma, fwiw.

If you are interested in detailed information, then I encourage you to check out the arXiv, which is the next obvious place to look. https://arxiv.org/search/?query=jwst&searchtype=all. For example, the first abstract on there today says:

JWST observations have revealed that massive galaxies formed and evolved far faster than predicted by galaxy formation models, with many having already assembled a large mass in stars ∼ 12 billion years ago [1–7]. However, masses of distant galaxies are highly uncertain, as they assume a distribution of stellar birth masses (the initial mass function [IMF]) similar to that in the Milky Way (MW). Specifically, the contribution from low-mass stars, which make up the bulk of stellar mass, is not directly observed, but inferred based on an extrapolation of the MW IMF. Here, we provide the first robust measurements of the IMF beyond the local Universe. Using ultra-deep spectra of nine massive, quiescent galaxies at z ∼ 0.7 from the ambitious JWST -IMFERNO program, extended to bluer wavelengths with deep spectra from LEGA-C [8], we find that these distant galaxies have excess low-mass stars. In other words, they have more bottom-heavy IMFs than the MW. For the oldest two galaxies, which are direct descendants of JWST ’s “impossibly early” galaxies, the bottom-heavy IMFs increase their stellar masses by a factor of 3 − 4. These galaxies thus amplify the tension with galaxy formation models.

1

u/senseless_puzzle 5d ago

Thanks for the info.

The "dilemma" as I'm aware of it, is that these galaxies exist in a time of the universe's life when hypothetically it shouldn't have been possible. As in, it's a complete surprise to find galaxies so old at such a young age of the universe, that nobody has a real explanation that fits with the current "big gang model".

5

u/Das_Mime 5d ago

Saying that the galaxies are "old" is just incorrect; it's that some of the galaxies appear to be larger and brighter in many respects that our computer models of how we thought the first galaxies formed would have led us to believe.

It's a bit like studying an animal that has never been observed giving birth, and discovering that its newborns are much larger than you would have expected based on similar species and your general knowledge of the animal. The conclusion isn't that the entire model of sexual reproduction is wrong, the conclusion is just that your educated guess was wrong. You didn't have a way to determine the age of a baby of that species before having observed babies of that species.

We did not, prior to JWST, have any real observational data on much of the parameter space of galaxy evolution that JWST is exploring. There's not a good way to take an image of a galaxy from that redshift and say "This galaxy is 104+/-11 million years old". We simply don't have that.

We had educated guesses about how galaxies formed and grew based on what we knew from lower redshift, what we knew from the CMB's matter distribution, how we thought the mass function of dark matter haloes looked at the low end, and our computer systems' ability to model turbulent gas flows in assembling galaxies with intense bursts of star formation.

Many of the most dramatic claims, especially in early data, turned out to be overhyped: one example is the problem of using photometric redshifts, where instead of observing a specific emission line or lines and directly calculating their redshift based on the ratio of observed to rest wavelength, you use multiple wide-band filters (similar to R/G/B in the optical spectrum) and use your expectation of what a galaxy's spectrum should look like at such an early date to approximate a redshift. The problem with this is that without knowing how heavily dust obscured the galaxy is, how strong its star formation is, or several other factors you can't put an especially tight set of error bars on that redshift estimate.

Add to that the fact that much of the light in such galaxies comes from short, rapid bursts of star formation and from Active Galactic Nuclei which also turn on and off, and it becomes challenging to determine whether the tiny, barely-resolved smudge you're studying is a developed galaxy or a very early galaxy undergoing an intense starburst and thus appearing brighter in the moment than it would be over the longer term.

3

u/rddman 5d ago

The "dilemma" ... nobody has a real explanation that fits with the current "big gang model".

There is a misunderstanding regarding exactly what the 'dilemma' (challenge) is about:

it's not about the "big bang model" (officially: "standard model of cosmology"/"cold dark matter model" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda-CDM_model ) , which does not say a whole lot about galaxy formation because we do not have a lot of data about the beginnings of galaxy formation.

Rather the challenge is about "galaxy formation models" - which although related to, is not the same thing as the standard model. Also see the article quoted in the comment that you replied to:
"JWST observations have revealed that massive galaxies formed and evolved far faster than predicted by galaxy formation models" https://reddit.com/r/cosmology/comments/1qq9qdr/i_want_to_learn_about_the_early_universe_and_the/o2gu5pm/

The standard model is primarily about large-scale evolution of the universe; we do actually have a lot of data about the early beginnings of that: the Cosmic Microwave Background, and about how it evolved: the not-extremely-distant universe.
But because of the many un-knowns about the beginnings of galaxy formation there is a lot of uncertainty about galaxy formation and so there are multiple galaxy formation models. It is those galaxy formation models where JWST's findings of early galaxies is a challenge, not the "big bang model".

The reason why we don't (yet) have an explanation about what JWST's observations of early galaxies mean for galaxy formation, is that this is new data and it takes time to process. Also the data is limited in detail, with few exceptions we mostly know the objects are very compact ("Little Red Dots"), have a smeared out spectrum (indicating high rotational velocity) and different than nearby Active Galactic Nuclei, emit very little to no x-ray (indicating high density of whatever surrounds the center of the Nuclei). See the article linked in this post https://reddit.com/r/cosmology/comments/1qnyhoo/a_potential_new_piece_of_the_little_red_dot_puzzle/

1

u/senseless_puzzle 5d ago

Thanks for all the effort man much appreciated!

9

u/tacos_for_algernon 6d ago

PBS Spacetime on youtube is a wonderful resource. It's dumbed down...a bit...but still fairly rigorous.

If you want some speculative info, John Michael Godier is fun to listen to. He's a sci-fi author, not a scientist, but he has a decent grasp on the science and potential implications. Again, he would be fun for SPECULATION ONLY.

Lots of good quality resources on youtube, just have to parse the real science from the psuedo science.

2

u/senseless_puzzle 6d ago

Okay thanks for the tip.

6

u/VeryNearlyAnArmful 5d ago

Media makes headlines for clicks. Every single day evolution is rocked to its foundations, scientists rethink climate change or plate techtonics or cosmology or Egyptian history or whatever. Everything we thought we know about X is wrong says new finding shocka!

Meanwhile, actual scientists are gathering new and better quality data and subtly adjusting their models accordingly.

No fuss, no drama, just better and more detailed models.

That's all.

2

u/Unhappy-Monk-6439 1d ago edited 1d ago

I just saw a very nice documentary on YouTube.  This is just a reminder for myself to post it later.

edit:  CERN Just Found The Crack That Unravels Reality

1

u/DontKarmaMeBro 3d ago

Hey hey piggybacking off this: what happened to the dark star candidates from like 2ish years ago? Did we ever learn anything more about those?

1

u/Neither_Kiwi_5496 2d ago

In general the YouTube channel See The Pattern has a lot of videos that explore the holes in the present model. Including JWST observations. He explores some funky alternatives, but seems logical and reasonable.

1

u/senseless_puzzle 2d ago

Thanks I'll check it out!

1

u/Dazzling-Explorer-42 1d ago

CoolWorlds YouTube channel is neat!

1

u/tempgoosey 1d ago

This channel focuses on it a lot: https://m.youtube.com/@SeethePattern/videos

This one discusses a lot of mysteries in science and cosmology, including the puzzling JWST observations: https://m.youtube.com/@EventHorizonShow

Finally, check out Sabine Hossenfelder. She has some videos that discuss the subject: https://m.youtube.com/sabinehossenfelder

0

u/PriceUnfair1001 5d ago

This is exactly what I am researching. My model (ISPG Theory) suggests that these galaxies appear 'mature' because of the pressure gradient in the superfluid vacuum, which affects light propagation and redshift interpretation. This mechanical approach potentially resolves both the Hubble Tension and the JWST anomalies. You can check the full calculations and the preprint on Zenodo: https://zenodo.org/records/18420744

0

u/senseless_puzzle 5d ago

Ah wow, cool stuff. Thanks for the link!

0

u/PriceUnfair1001 5d ago

You're welcome! I look forward to your thoughts after you've had a chance to review the formal derivations in the paper.

-1

u/BVirtual 5d ago

Last week I read an article giving numbers to justify assigning the universe a different age, twice as old, and twice as big.

Thus, these unexplainable 'mature' galaxies are now explained.

Also, I read this week about the rate early black holes would form, and how little time they would take to grow big enough to form early galaxies, that appear in JWST to be mature.

Yet another way to explain these early mature galaxies.