When the James Webb telescope looked deep into the Universe, just after the Big Bang, it discovered many large galaxies there. This was unexpected and did not fit the standard cosmological model. Some decided it was time to fix this. But a large international team of scientists who analyzed data from the CEERS survey have come up with an explanation for the discrepancy between theory and observations.

Giant galaxies at high redshifts are particularly interesting. They make it possible to understand how a large number of stars are formed in a short time by cosmic standards and what processes control this. Astronomers have devoted much effort to studying the process by which galaxies build up their stellar mass.

Using data from the Hubble and Spitzer telescopes, accurate estimates of the stellar masses of galaxies with a redshift of up to five have been obtained. “James Webb” allowed us to delve even further into the past. One of the surprising discoveries is the abundance of bright galaxies with a redshift of eight or more in the ultraviolet range. This may point to a different mechanism of star formation and the interaction of stars with their environment in the early Universe.

These direct observations were not included in the model. To understand why, astronomers analyzed the spectra of very massive galaxies at redshifts four to eight from the CEERS (Cosmic Evolutionary Research Early Release) survey. The results are published in the publication Astrophysics Journal.

According to recent studies, the early galaxies that appear larger contain a black hole. It rapidly sucks in the gas around it, and the friction in these gas flows produces additional heat and light radiation beyond that coming from the stars. As a result, it appears to the observer that there are many more stars in the galaxies, and therefore they are larger. These are called little red dots because of their characteristic color and size. If they were excluded from the analysis, the remaining early galaxies would no longer be as large as the Standard Model predicts. Therefore, according to the authors of the work, it is too early to speak of its inaccuracy.

“We don’t actually see a crisis in the Standard Cosmological Model. If you have a time-tested theory, you really need good reasons to refute it. In any case, it’s not that simple,” Steven Finkelstein, professor of astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin (USA) and head of the CEERS research implemented within the James Webb telescope program, said in an interview with the press service.

But the problem is still not completely solved. According to Kateryna Shvorovski, the lead author of the paper, scientists count twice as many distant galaxies as theory suggests. One possible explanation is that star formation in the early universe was much faster than it is today.

Stars are formed from sufficiently cooled gas, which is compressed under the influence of gravity. As it is compressed, it heats up again, creating external pressure. In our region of space, these multifaceted forces slow down star formation. But in the early universe, which was denser than today, on the contrary, according to some theories, it was more difficult to blow out gas, which accelerated the process.

The scientists also examined spectra of small red dots from the CEERS survey and other observations of fast-moving hydrogen gas, a signature of a black hole’s accretion disk. They confirmed the assumption that the emission from these compact red sources is not from stars, but from gas orbiting the black holes.

It turns out that stars are not as powerful as initially thought. New observations are needed to confirm these structures, but it is already clear that the process of star formation needs new ideas. So the intrigue continues, according to Shvorovsky.