Astronomers have spotted a trio of supermassive galaxies that were already fully formed in the first billion years of the universe’s existence, according to a Yale news release.
The galaxies were identified by the James Webb Space Telescope, according to a release. The citing challenges long-held notions that supermassive galaxies formed over much longer periods of time.
“It is a bit like looking at rocks from the earliest times in Earth’s history and seeing fossils of fully formed animals,” said Pieter van Dokkum, the Sol Goldman Family Professor of Astronomy and professor of physics in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
According to a release, “The international team of researchers, led by scientists at the University of Geneva, identified the trio of early galaxies using data from the telescope’s FRESCO (First Reionization Epoch Spectroscopic Complete) Survey. FRESCO is able to accurately measure distances and masses of galaxies.”
The galaxies have roughly the same number of stars as the Milky Way does today, according to a release. They are also forming new stars at a rate nearly twice as high as their lower-mass counterparts, as well as galaxies formed later on.
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The galaxies’ high dust content gives them a red appearance in telescope images, earning then the name “Red Monsters,” according to a release.
“Our findings are reshaping our understanding of galaxy formation in the early universe,” said Mengyuan Xiao, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Geneva.
“Somehow, these galaxies managed to turn nearly all of their gas into stars in just a few hundred million years — the blink of a cosmological eye,” van Dokkum said.
Researchers stressed that the findings do not upend the existing cosmological model of galaxy formation, according to a release, but “add a new wrinkle — the possibility that early galaxies could grow more quickly under specific conditions.”
