Tiny bright objects discovered at dawn of universe baffle scientists
Posted: Mon Jul 01, 2024 12:16 am
I read the first article you linked to and I, too, am baffled.Psnarf wrote: ↑Mon Jul 01, 2024 12:16 am Color me baffled.
https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story ... scientists
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3 ... 213/ad55f7
I'd say we should remain somewhat skeptical for the time being. Measuring the properties of objects at the dawn of time is obviously difficult. Perhaps there is something wrong with the observations or with the interpretations of the data.
It is also possible that there were processes in the very early Universe that allowed the rapid creation of very massive, very compact galaxies that produced a lot of very massive stars that soon became red giants. It is possible that such enormous burst(s) of star formation used up and/or blew away all the gas from the galaxies and stopped all further star formation. These galaxies would have become red very quickly.
It is of course also possible that we don't understand the age of the Universe, so that these galaxies are older than we think. It does seem very likely that there are very many things indeed that we don't know or understand about the very early Universe!
Ann
