Ultramassive galaxy discovery provides new look at early universe
Last April, scientists with the University of Texas published findings in Nature Astronomy that showed several galaxies that existed during the early universe, but appeared to have far greater mass than they should.
AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Imagine seeing a forty-pound baby. It looks like a baby, acts like a baby, but it's one really big baby. It shouldn't exist and yet there it is. This is essentially the problem astronomers are facing while observing the early universe using the James Webb Space Telescope.
Last April, scientists with the University of Texas published findings in Nature Astronomy that showed several galaxies that existed during the early universe, but appeared to have far greater mass than they should.
These ultramassive galaxies were detected because of the amount of light they emitted. "When we say mass, there's a trickery here," said Julian Muñoz, an assistant professor at the University of Texas' Department of Astronomy. He recently published a paper that attempts to understand these galaxies.
How do you weigh a galaxy?
"We can't go and weigh a galaxy out in space. So we have to translate the light we see with our telescopes, into how many stars that are, how heavy are the stars, and these ultra massive galaxies are galaxies that are way too heavy."
According to Professor Muñoz, the amount of mass these galaxies have is equivalent to the amount of mass our current Milky Way has. Except, these galaxies existed at the dawn of the universe. Our Milky Way is 14 billion years old.
The discovery of these ultramassive galaxies could rewrite our understanding of the early universe. One possibility is that the Webb telescope is actually detecting dust clouds which are distorting light that is passing through them.
Warping light
Professor Muñoz said there may be a different reason why these galaxies appear to be larger: black holes.
"The stuff that falls into the black hole (is) emitting light. And because these black holes are at the center of galaxies, then you actually get a lot of stuff falling in a lot of stuff emitting light."
This, however, means there more of these supermassive black holes out there than we originally anticipated.
"We are exchanging one problem for another, the problem of galaxies that are too massive to the problem of too many black holes. And in a way, I find it equally exciting. Because too many black holes still means that there's something we don't understand."