Astronomers spotted something perplexing near the beginning of time

[Jilly_in_VA]

Not long after the James Webb Space Telescope came online in 2022, astronomers’ jaws hit the floor.

“I remember thinking, This just can’t be right!” says Mike Boylan-Kolchin, a University of Texas Austin astronomer.

The observations he’s referring to would, to you and me, seem like little smudgy red blobs among a field of other smudges and blobs. But in his eyes, they represented a potential challenge to the story scientists have painstakingly constructed about the formative years of our universe.

That is, some time after the Big Bang, around 12-plus billion years ago, when the universe went from a dark, diffuse place full of gas to a light-filled universe populated by stars and galaxies. This is the era that laid the foundation for everything to come — including our solar system, and you and me.

Scientists had some theories about what happened during this crucial period, but the new telescope put them to the test by observing regions of space humans have never seen before.

https://www.vox.com/science/24040534/jwst-galaxies-big-bright-mystery-black-holes-cosmology

Guess what...we don't know everything after all!

[rurallib]

1. Must be gawd

[montanacowboy]

2. You just can't begin to wrap your head around it

if you think about it too long it's very overwhelming - the question remains - where did it all come from?

[SCantiGOP]

19. Carl Sagan had a snarky answer:

Last edited Wed Jan 17, 2024, 09:21 PM - Edit history (1)

Once upon a time there was nothing; suddenly, it exploded into everything.

[montanacowboy]

29. Ha Ha

thanks for that!

[EYESORE 9001]

3. I've been entertaining a theory I read recently

that multiple ‘big bangs’ may have occurred over the eons. I won’t expound here, but it’s intriguing.

[limbicnuminousity]

37. Does your theory

consider the possibility that 'big bang' are ongoing at a cosmic scale?

It's amazing stuff, exciting even. Can you imagine traveling to the 'center' of 'creation?' I find it oddly reassuring.

[EYESORE 9001]

39. Yes, but it's not my theory alone

[Jerry2144]

4. Something perplexing from the beginning of time?

They found chuck Grassly’s baby pictures?

[PJMcK]

28. High school graduation photos? (n/t)

[eppur_se_muova]

5. Interesting, and a pretty well written article. He does a good job of making it understable to nonspecialists. nt

[AllaN01Bear]

6. the tardis?

[RainCaster]

8. The FSM

[AllaN01Bear]

7. settled cosmology. hem cool though.

[spike jones]

9. I'm not saying aliens, but...

[Mr.Bill]

10. I don't know, and I don't care.

I am content with that.

[Jilly_in_VA]

11. And you came here

just to say that.

I really don't appreciate all the smartass comments either, not that this article is about me. You'd think some of you would have grown up by now. enough to appreciate that there might be something bigger than you out there...

[Mr.Bill]

12. I'm an Atheist.

That's why I don't care. I clicked on this thread because the title interested me. Sorry if I somehow offended you, because that wasn't my intention.

[Jilly_in_VA]

14. You don't have to believe in God

to believe in something bigger than yourself, even if it's the universe.

[Mr.Bill]

16. This is an arguement I'm going to choose to not have with you.

Have a good day.

[Martin68]

22. I'm curious, Mr. Bill, how being an atheist and not being interested in science are related.

I don’t see the connection.

[Mr.Bill]

24. If I was not interested in science, I wouldn't have clicked on this thread.

I just don't dwell on the big unanswerable questions we have about the universe. I am content with just being. I do marvel about some of the things they are finding with the new telescope, though.

[Martin68]

31. What else is science but the big unanswered questions we have about the universe? You

sound totally clueless about what science is all about. It’s about learning about that which we don’t understand. Just being in the now is cool but it doesn’t add to our knowledge. We’d still be living in caves. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s anti-scientific to the extreme.

[AZ8theist]

32. I don't think that's what he said at all....

Calling him "clueless" about science is disingenuous at best. He clearly stated he has an interest in science but does not dwell on questions about the unknown. That's not "anti-scientific", it's just the reality of countless millions of humans who are more fixated on their daily lives than science discovery.

I'm a militant atheist myself and am totally absorbed with scientific discovery. Doesn't mean I do research or experimentation. My disgust is with the ignorant that see science doesn't answer every question, then goes AH-HA!! GOD did it! "There's something bigger than ourselves" bullshit. Those are the ones who are clueless.

I confine my fights to creationists, flat-Earthers, and the other assorted idiots who think the Buy Bull is a scientific text book. Debunking that stupidity furthers the cause of science every bit as much as analyzing pictures from the JWST.....

[Jilly_in_VA]

35. Saying "There's something bigger than ourselves"

doesn't presuppose God at all. My husband is not a believer in God, he's an agnostic, but he still believes in something bigger than us.

[limbicnuminousity]

38. In fairness

some folks get agitated when "something bigger than ourselves" enters the discussion. Belief in a higher power gets shoved down a lot of throats especially if you've been exposed to some of the more fiery brands of fundamentalism in America.

Sometimes it's easier simply not to name "it". Naming "it" creates discord.

Cool thread, btw. Nice find.

[Martin68]

36. My disgust includes those without curiosity or an understanding of the quest for knowledge.

BTW, you don’t seem to understand the word “disingenuous”. I suggest you look it up. The fact that he said he’s “interested” in science is meaningless if he confesses he’s not interested in the unknown. That’s exactly what science strives to know and understand. The cause of disease was once unknown. The mechanism for inheritance of traits from one’s parents was once unknown. Mr. Bill would have been satisfied to leave it at that.

[Warpy]

25. Well, I can synoatguze, dive deeply enough into this stuff

and most people will start having brain cramps.

What is clear is that the universe is both larger and older than we are currently capable of detecting. Even in our own neighborhood, objects far older than the guesstimated 13.4 billion years the universe is have been observed. Add tp tjat the existence of organic chemicals and precursors to DNA wherever we've looked, it seems much of the universe is alive, one way or another.

Now that's being part of something larger than I am that fills me with awe.

I can't imagine needing more.

[machoneman]

26. Hey, take a chill pill. Geez some people take offense at nothing.

[Martin68]

21. I guess, Mr. Bill, you are trying to persuade us that you are a dull thinker. It worked!

[Mr.Bill]

23. You guess wrong, my friend.

[Martin68]

30. Well you sure did a good job of sounding dull! You fooled me.

[Auggie]

13. "Fascinating"

... as Spock might say. Thanks for sharing Jilly_in_VA.

[JohnnyRingo]

15. What if... There was more than one Big Bang in an abutting Universe?

I mean, what is beyond the furthest reaches of the Universe? More Universe of course, or perhaps a parallel Universe that evolved separately with it's own mass explosion and we're seeing even older galaxies from that cataclysmic event.

By my thinking, as my mother explained when I was a child, there is no end to space. Beyond space, is more space, and it's possible there exists a realm beyond our mortal imagination that is ruled by its own legal book of physics.

But what do I know?

[Jilly_in_VA]

17. There is endless room

for speculation, and endless scope for imagination in all of this, wouldn't you say? Every time I look up at the stars I am reminded of how small we are, and how immense everything out there is....and how little we really know after all.

[JohnnyRingo]

34. "Endless room for speculation"

Enough for an entire genre of fiction based on science theory. haha

[sumus]

18. Could be?

God’s car keys?

[Martin68]

20. The "Guess what...we don't know everything after all!" is kind of silly. Scientists never said we did.

That’s why millions were spent designing, manufacturing and launching the telescope in the first place.

[Jilly_in_VA]

40. Saying "settled cosmology"

kind of presupposes that at least some people thought they did.

[Martin68]

41. True that. I guess there will always be those fools who assume we've figured everything out and can

rest on our laurels.

[Beartracks]

27. Fascinating.

=============

[Hermit-The-Prog]

33. Simple: Early galaxies saw what was forming (us) and turned around.

Those early galaxies are now very old, but farther away than otherwise expected.

[Jilly_in_VA]

42. And now they've found

a galaxy without any stars at all. That completely boggles the mind. Is it dead, or just forming?