The James Webb Space Telescope discovers enormous distant galaxies that should not exist

By Tereza Pultarova published 4 days ago

Giant, mature galaxies seem to have filled the universe shortly after the Big Bang, and astronomers are puzzled.

Nobody expected them. They were not supposed to be there. And now, nobody can explain how they had formed.

Galaxies nearly as massive as the Milky Way and full of mature red stars seem to be dispersed in deep field images obtained by the James Webb Space Telescope (Webb or JWST) during its early observation campaign, and they are giving astronomers a headache.

These galaxies, described in a new study based on Webb's first data release, are so far away that they appear only as tiny reddish dots to the powerful telescope. By analyzing the light emitted by these galaxies, astronomers established that they were viewing them in our universe's infancy only 500 to 700 million years after the Big Bang.