A NASA breakthrough has unveiled a “Red Monster” discovery that’s left experts baffled.
NASA’s James Webb Telescope (JWST) has captured imagery of three “Red Monster” galaxies, roughly the size of the Milky Way, that are believed to have assembled within the first billion years of the Big Bang.
Astronomers have suggested that the formation of stars in the early universe was far more efficient than previously thought, prompting experts to rethink existing galaxy formation models.
But these “Red Monster” galaxies should not exist under the most widely accepted cosmological model – Lambda Cold Dark Matter (LCDM) model – researchers noted.
This model asserts that the universe’s first galaxies did not have time to become as massive as these newly discovered galaxies appear to be.
“Finding three such massive beasts among the sample poses a tantalising puzzle,” said Stjn Wuyts, study co-author and Hiroko Sherwin Chair in Extragalactic Astronomy at the University of Bath.
“Many processes in galaxy evolution have a tendency to introduce a rate-limiting step in how efficiently gas can convert into stars, yet somehow these Red Monsters appear to have swiftly evaded most of these hurdles,” the statement continued.
These galaxies have earned their name due to their gigantic size and high dust content, which gives them a distinct red appearance in telescope images.
This is not a new phenomenon – the three new galaxies are the latest in a series of discoveries that have forced astronomers to question their understanding of how early galaxies were formed.
Wuyts and his colleagues conducted their study as part of a special survey which set out to systematically analyse a complete sample of emission-line galaxies (ELGs) within the first billion years of the Big Bang, according to the statement.
ELGs exhibit strong emission lines in the spectra of light they emit: “these emission lines appear as bright lines at specific wavelengths, standing out against the darker background of the spectrum,” the statement continued.
This discovery is the latest in a growing body of research that shows that we still have much to learn about the early universe.
In February 2023, a JWST survey found six galaxies that formed just 500 to 700 million years after the Big Bang, which are 100 times larger than astronomers would expect them to be.
