JWST's Disconnect With Cosmology Models Linked to 'Bursty Star Formations'

Images from the James Webb Space Telescope "don't match scientists' models of how the universe formed," reports the Washington Post. "But it might not be time to dump the standard model of cosmology yet. "A recent analysis in the Astrophysical Journal Letters suggests an explanation for the surprisingly massive-seeming galaxies: brilliant, extremely bright bursts of newborn stars. The galaxies photographed by the telescope looked far too mature and large to have formed so fully so soon after the universe began, raising questions about scientists' assumptions of galaxy formation. But when researchers ran a variety of computer simulations of the universe's earliest days, they discovered that the galaxies probably are not as large as they seem. Instead, they attribute their brightness to a phenomenon called "bursty star formation." As clouds of dust and debris collapse, they form dense, high-temperature cores and become stars. Bursty galaxies spit out new stars in intermittent, bright bursts instead of creating stars more consistently. Usually, these galaxies are low in mass and take long breaks between starbursts. Because the galaxies in question look so bright in photos produced by the Webb telescope, scientists at first thought they were older and more massive. But bursty systems with the ability to produce extremely bright, abundant light may appear more massive than they really are. "Not only does this finding explain why young galaxies appear deceptively massive, it also fits within the standard model of cosmology," explains the announcement:In the new study, Guochao Sun, who led the study, Northwestern's, Claude-Andre Faucher-Giguere, the study's senior author, and their team used advanced computer simulations to model how galaxies formed right after the Big Bang. The simulations produced cosmic dawn galaxies that were just as bright as those observed by the JWST... Although other astrophysicists have hypothesized that bursty star formation could be responsible for the unusual brightness of galaxies at cosmic dawn, the Northwestern researchers are the first to use detailed computer simulations to prove it is possible. And they were able to do so without adding new factors that are unaligned with our standard model of the universe.

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