Scientists discover ‘surprise’ that changes understanding of the universe

Looking back to the very earliest days of the universe sounds like something that would only be possible in science fiction, but experts have managed to find something real from far back in the depths of time.

Some of the world’s leading astronomers discovered something “truly surprising” billions of years ago that could completely change the understanding of our universe.

It came as a result of studying findings from the Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.

The vastly advanced technology allows experts to study the earliest galaxies in the universe, giving them an indication of conditions very long ago.

The universe is about 13.7 billion years old and a team of researchers from the University of Durham have observed events known as bar formation just a few billion years after the universe was formed – which is quite mind-boggling to understand.

That’s further back than previous insights from the Hubble Space Telescope, which provide insight into conditions nine billion years ago.

The team’s findings have been published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

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The new findings are more important than just offering a look further back into the past than before. In fact, the nature of the findings could mean that our understanding of the universe’s earliest days needs to be reevaluated.

It relates to bar formations, as the presence of these more solid forms are indicators of more solid environments, compared to the more chaotic nature of galaxies in their earlier gestation.

Zoe Le Conte is a PhD researcher at the Center for Extragalactic Astronomy within the Department of Physics at the University of Durham, and is also lead author of the study.

Le Conte said: ‘The galaxies in the early universe matured much faster than we thought. This is a real surprise, because you would expect the universe to be very turbulent at that stage, with lots of collisions between galaxies and a lot of gas that has not yet transformed into stars.

“Thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope, however, we are seeing many of these bars much earlier in the life of the universe, meaning that galaxies were at a quieter stage in their evolution than previously thought.

“This means we will have to adjust our view of the early evolution of galaxies.”

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