JWST is able to observe galaxies that are so distant, we\u2019re seeing them as they were just 500\u2013700 million years after the Big Bang<\/a>, giving a window into the epoch when galaxies<\/a> were just beginning to form.<\/p>\n These were all expected to be small, infant galaxies just beginning to grow, so astronomers were shocked to find six that appear to have comparable masses to the Milky Way.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is our first glimpse back this far, so it\u2019s important that we keep an open \u201cThe amount of mass we discovered means that the known mass in stars at this period of our Universe is up to 100 times greater than we had previously thought. Even if we cut the sample in half, this is still an astounding change,\u201d says Leja.<\/p>\n \u201cThe revelation that massive galaxy formation began extremely early in the history of the Universe upends what many of us had thought was settled science.\u201d<\/p>\n To find out more about how these Universe-breakers were discovered, and what it means, we spoke to Erica Nelson, an assistant professor of astrophysics at the University of Colorado Boulder<\/a>, who was part of the study.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In the beginning there was nothing: no time, no space. Then the Big Bang happened and everything popped into existence \u2013 all the light and matter that exists in our Universe.<\/span><\/p>\n The early Universe was a hot, dense, turbulent place and the kinds of objects that could form then were very different from those that could form today. <\/span><\/p>\n We were trying to see the first luminous objects in the Universe.<\/span><\/p>\n The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was constructed to look back at the earliest cosmic epochs to search for these luminous objects. We don\u2019t yet know how far back in time they exist.<\/span><\/p>\n We didn\u2019t think JWST would have the sensitivity to see individual stars<\/a>, so instead we were looking for galaxies that are much more luminous.<\/span><\/p>\n I was blinking back and forth between Hubble Space Telescope<\/a> images and JWST images and noticed these fuzzy spots that were extremely red, bright and didn\u2019t exist in the Hubble images.<\/span><\/p>\n We started trying to figure out what they were.<\/span><\/p>\n We were analysing the data and found that one was a massive galaxy, very early in the Universe.<\/span><\/p>\n Our collaboration then found more of these objects that looked like galaxies.<\/span><\/p>\n The earliest is about 500 million years after the Big Bang.<\/span><\/p>\n These early galaxies had the same number of stars as our Milky Way, shortly after the first stars formed.<\/span><\/p>\n In comparison, our Milky Way has had 14 billion years to form: the entire history of the Universe.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n We have theories of cosmology, one of which says the Universe began with a Big Bang 14 billion years ago.<\/span><\/p>\n This theory makes predictions for how big galaxies should be able to get at a given era in the Universe\u2019s history.<\/span><\/p>\n Based on those predictions, we did not think galaxies should exist at such early times as we discovered them; it\u2019s not possible in current theories of cosmology. <\/span><\/p>\n We call these galaxies the \u2018Universe breakers\u2019 because they shatter the notion that massive galaxies took billions of years to form, a fundamental precept of our understanding of the Universe.<\/span><\/p>\n First, we need to validate that one or more of these objects is a galaxy, because we\u2019ve never seen such objects before.<\/span><\/p>\n We\u2019d also like to find more of them to determine if this is some kind of statistical anomaly; the Universe is big and the patch of sky that we looked at is small.<\/span><\/p>\n The second is that we need to get more JWST data on these objects, mainly spectroscopic<\/a> data, and that will tell us if they\u2019re real.<\/span><\/p>\n Everyone says that an image is worth a thousand words but for us, a spectrum is worth a thousand images.<\/p>\n With a spectrum we can tell if the light we see is due to, say, a quasar. It also allows us to confirm how far away these objects are and hence know how old they are.<\/p>\n We got additional data on one of the objects in December, and it turns out to be a baby quasar<\/a> and not a galaxy.<\/span><\/p>\n![\""The\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/25\/2023\/05\/webb-universe-breaking-galaxies-2d124e6.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C465"\" "\\"\"webb\\"")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>![\""erica\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/25\/2023\/05\/erica-nelson-astronomy-5882b57.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C496"\" "\\"\"erica\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>\nWhat was the early Universe like? <\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n
What was your research team looking for?<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n
![\""A\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/25\/2021\/06\/timeline-of-universe-27f945d.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C196"\" "\\"\"A\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>How did you make your discovery?<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n
What era did these galaxies exist in?<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n
Did you expect to see such galaxies? <\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n
![\""James\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/25\/2022\/07\/james-webb-first-image-SMACS-0723-fb416af-e1657608530907.jpeg?quality=90&resize=620%2C632"\" "\\"\"james\\"")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>What\u2019s next for researchers looking for these \u2018Universe breakers\u2019?<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n
How will spectroscopic data confirm they\u2019re\u00a0galaxies?<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n
If they\u2019re not galaxies, what else could they be? <\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n