Observations by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope are upending the understanding of the early universe, indicating the presence of large and mature but remarkably compact galaxies teeming with stars far sooner than scientists had considered possible.
Webb was launched in 2021 and began collecting data last year. The findings were based upon the first dataset released by NASA last July from Webb, a telescope boasting infrared-sensing instruments able to detect light from the most ancient stars and galaxies.
"The exciting part is that even if only some turn out to be massive galaxies, these things are so massive that they alone would upend our measurements of the total mass in stars at this time. It would suggest 10 to 100 times more mass in stars existing at this epoch than expected and would imply that galaxies form way, way faster in the universe than anyone thought."
"The leading theory is that an ocean of dark matter filled the early universe after the Big Bang," Labbe said.
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