No, the Big Bang theory is not 'broken.' Here's how we know.

The first publicly released science-quality image from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, revealed on July 11, 2022, is the deepest infrared view of the universe to date.
The first publicly released science-quality image from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, revealed on July 11, 2022, is the deepest infrared view of the universe to date. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI)

The James Webb Space Telescope, not even finished with its first full year of observations, has delivered some real stunners. But amid the breathtaking images and unprecedented findings, there was a puzzling claim: that the telescope had detected galaxies in the incredibly young universe. Those galaxies were so massive and appeared so early that they, the headlines claimed, "broke" the Big Bang model of cosmology. 

The claim went viral, but as with many things on the internet, it's simply not true.

Now, there's more research to back up the Big Bang. Recently, researchers took a more careful look at the data and determined that the distant galaxies discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope are, indeed, perfectly compatible with our modern understanding of cosmology.

Related: The James Webb Space Telescope never disproved the Big Bang. Here's how that falsehood spread.

The potential problem with distant galaxies isn't that they exist. In fact, the modern formulation of the Big Bang theory, called ΛCDM cosmology (the Λ stands for dark energy, and CDM is short for "cold dark matter"), predicts galaxies to appear in the very young universe. That's because billions of years ago, there were no galaxies, or even stars, at all. When our universe was much smaller and much denser than it is today, everything was much more uniform, with only tiny density differences appearing here and there randomly.

But over time, those density differences grew, with the slightly denser pockets pulling more material onto them. Over hundreds of millions of years, those pockets formed into the first stars, and eventually grew to become the first galaxies.

In fact, one of the main goals of the Webb telescope was to discover and characterize those first galaxies, so finding galaxies in the incredibly young universe is a point in favor of the Big Bang theory, not against it.

So what's the conflict, then? The apparent tension came about because of the estimated masses of those galaxies. Several were quite large — well over 10^10 solar masses. That is still much smaller than the Milky Way, but for the early universe, they are quite gigantic. 

The researchers who discovered these galaxies estimated that their large masses put them in tension with many models of galactic formation and evolution. At the extreme end, the researchers claimed that it might even be possible for no galaxy formation model within the ΛCDM framework to create such large galaxies so quickly.

A matter of some debate

But those claims hinged on measuring a precise distance to those galaxies — an incredibly difficult task at these extreme distances. For the record-breaking galaxies that could be tension with cosmological models, the researchers relied on something called a photometric redshift, which fits a rough light spectrum of a galaxy to a model to estimate a distance.

That method is notoriously unreliable, with simple effects — like excess dust surrounding the galaxies — making them appear more distant than they really are.

To accurately judge if the Big Bang is in trouble, a new team of researchers used Webb to identify galaxies with a much more precise and reliable method of determining distance, known as spectroscopic redshift. This technique identifies the spectral lines of known elements emitted by the galaxies and uses them to measure the redshift, and thereby the distance, to the galaxies. 

Using this more accurate technique, the team found a sample of four galaxies. All those galaxies were just as distant as the previously identified galaxies, but they had confirmed, reliable distances. However, these galaxies had much smaller masses: around 10^8 and 10^9 solar masses.

So the question then became, does ΛCDM allow for these smaller galaxies to exist at such a young age in the history of the universe, or does the tension remain?

In come the simulations 

Building galaxies is no easy task. While pen-and-paper mathematics can allow cosmologists to chart the overall history and evolution of the cosmos within the ΛCDM model, galaxy formation involves the complex interplay of many kinds of physics: gravity, star formation and supernova explosions, dust distribution, cosmic rays, magnetic fields and more.

Accounting for all these interactions requires the use of supercomputer simulations that take the raw, primal state of the universe as it was billions of years ago and follow the laws of physics to build artificial galaxies. That's the only way to connect what we see in the real world (galaxies) with the fundamental parameters of the ΛCDM model (like the amount of normal and dark matter in the cosmos).

The simulations allowed the researchers to play around with many kinds of models. If no models could generate galaxies of that mass at that age, then ΛCDM would be in trouble.

Thankfully, there were no such problems. The appearance of galaxies with 10^8 solar masses in the early universe was no sweat for ΛCDM, the team explained in their research paper, which has been submitted to The Astrophysical Journal Letters and is available as a preprint via arXiv.

As usual, this isn't the final answer. Astronomers may yet confirm the distance to a very large galaxy in the early universe that may force us to rethink our understanding of galaxy formation, and maybe even the ΛCDM cosmological model. In science, it's always important to keep an open mind. But the exaggerated claims made from the early Webb data aren't enough to worry about yet.

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Paul Sutter
Space.com Contributor

Paul M. Sutter is an astrophysicist at SUNY Stony Brook and the Flatiron Institute in New York City. Paul received his PhD in Physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2011, and spent three years at the Paris Institute of Astrophysics, followed by a research fellowship in Trieste, Italy, His research focuses on many diverse topics, from the emptiest regions of the universe to the earliest moments of the Big Bang to the hunt for the first stars. As an "Agent to the Stars," Paul has passionately engaged the public in science outreach for several years. He is the host of the popular "Ask a Spaceman!" podcast, author of "Your Place in the Universe" and "How to Die in Space" and he frequently appears on TV — including on The Weather Channel, for which he serves as Official Space Specialist.

  • Helio
    “... finding galaxies in the incredibly young universe is a point in favor of the Big Bang theory, not against it.”
    BBT gets a little stronger, not weaker.

    I’m curious about many things about these galaxies now that we can observe thes young galaxies. Here are just two:

    1) Are the stars mostly Pop II or Pop I stars?

    2) Even though their number of stars are fewer, should we not be seeing a much greater number of SN (Type II)? This might help determine distance better, though their absolute brightness may be hard to determine.
    Reply
  • rod
    The source cited in the space.com report is https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.12804, "with four galaxies found with redshifts between z=10.38 and z=13.2."

    Interesting. What happens to galaxy morphology and size at z = 20? :)

    Here is another view on these galaxies JWST is finding at large redshifts.

    Astronomers suggest more galaxies were formed in the early universe than previously thought, https://phys.org/news/2023-01-astronomers-galaxies-early-universe-previously.html
    Edit: One report apparently used 4 galaxies. the phys.org report indicates 87 were used :)

    "In a new study, a team of astronomers led by Haojing Yan at the University of Missouri used data from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Early Release Observations and discovered 87 galaxies that could be the earliest known galaxies in the universe."
    Reply
  • rod
    I note here the conclusion of the arxiv.org paper. "In general, we find that each of these simulations produces galaxies with comparable stellar masses to the JADES galaxies by z ~ 10. The most massive JADES galaxies have somewhat lower SFRs than simulated galaxies at z ~ 10, but lie within the scatter of the simulations. The galaxy number density implied by the JADES galaxies at z ~ 10 is consistent with both the simulations and past observations. At higher redshift, only Simba and OBELISK produce galaxies as massive as are found in JADES. The number density of galaxies inferred from JADES is slightly larger than what is predicted by Simba at z = 11 and z = 12, but at a low level of significance. Overall, there appears to be no strong tension between models for galaxy formation in cosmological hydrodynamic simulations and the most distant spectroscopically confirmed
    galaxies."

    Okay, the conclusion paints a rosy picture for the BB model and early galaxy formation, using simulations. Time will tell here.
    Reply
  • rod
    Helio said:
    “... finding galaxies in the incredibly young universe is a point in favor of the Big Bang theory, not against it.”
    BBT gets a little stronger, not weaker.

    I’m curious about many things about these galaxies now that we can observe thes young galaxies. Here are just two:

    1) Are the stars mostly Pop II or Pop I stars?

    2) Even though their number of stars are fewer, should we not be seeing a much greater number of SN (Type II)? This might help determine distance better, though their absolute brightness may be hard to determine.

    Helio, interesting questions. You and I have discussed already that to see the original, pristine gas clouds said to be created during BBN, we would need to look back to z~1100. This report seems focused on galaxies in the z~10 or so range, perhaps a small number a bit larger redshift. Running a simulation from original gas clouds at z=1100 and evolve the universe to z=10, could prove intriguing :)
    Reply
  • Pentcho Valev
    Sabine Hossenfelder: "The solution of general relativity that describes the expanding universe is a solution on average; it is good only on very large distances. But the solutions that describe galaxies are different - and just don't expand. It's not that galaxies expand unnoticeably, they just don't. The full solution, then, is both stitched together: Expanding space between non-expanding galaxies...It is only somewhere beyond the scales of galaxy clusters that expansion takes over."

    So cosmologists apply the expansion solutions only to voids deprived of galaxies; to galaxies and galactic clusters they apply nonexpansion solutions. Why do cosmologists resort to this trick? Because, if they applied expansion solutions to galaxies and galactic clusters, observations would immediately disprove the expansion theory. Here is why:

    If expansion is actual inside galaxies and galactic clusters, the competition between expansion and gravitational attraction would distort those cosmic structures - e.g. fringes only weakly bound by gravity would succumb to expansion and fly away. And the theory, if it takes into account the intragalactic expansion, will have to predict the distortions.

    But no distortions are observed - there is really no expansion inside galaxies and galactic clusters. And cosmologists, without much publicity, have simply made the theory consistent with this fact.

    Since there is no expansion inside galaxies and galactic clusters, there is no expansion anywhere else.
    Reply
  • rod
    Pentcho Valev said:
    Sabine Hossenfelder: "The solution of general relativity that describes the expanding universe is a solution on average; it is good only on very large distances. But the solutions that describe galaxies are different - and just don't expand. It's not that galaxies expand unnoticeably, they just don't. The full solution, then, is both stitched together: Expanding space between non-expanding galaxies...It is only somewhere beyond the scales of galaxy clusters that expansion takes over."

    So cosmologists apply the expansion solutions only to voids deprived of galaxies; to galaxies and galactic clusters they apply nonexpansion solutions. Why do cosmologists resort to this trick? Because, if they applied expansion solutions to galaxies and galactic clusters, observations would immediately disprove the expansion theory. Here is why:

    If expansion is actual inside galaxies and galactic clusters, the competition between expansion and gravitational attraction would distort those cosmic structures - e.g. fringes only weakly bound by gravity would succumb to expansion and fly away. And the theory, if it takes into account the intragalactic expansion, will have to predict the distortions.

    But no distortions are observed - there is really no expansion inside galaxies and galactic clusters. And cosmologists, without much publicity, have simply made the theory consistent with this fact.

    Since there is no expansion inside galaxies and galactic clusters, there is no expansion anywhere else.
    "Sabine Hossenfelder: "The solution of general relativity that describes the expanding universe is a solution on average; it is good only on very large distances. But the solutions that describe galaxies are different - and just don't expand. It's not that galaxies expand unnoticeably, they just don't. The full solution, then, is both stitched together: Expanding space between non-expanding galaxies...It is only somewhere beyond the scales of galaxy clusters that expansion takes over."

    Pentcho Valev, very interesting here. I used this cosmology calculator, https://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/toolbox/calculators.html
    Using defaults with z=1100, the universe radius about 41 million light years when the CMBR appears as light and the original pristine gas clouds continue their cosmic evolution into galaxies later. The space.com report is about simulations for galaxies mostly near z=10. The universe age then is just less than 500 million years old and radius close to 2.9 billion light years. It is not difficult to see that space expands close to 6x c velocity while the galaxies do not expand like this :) "Expanding space between non-expanding galaxies"

    This makes my head hurt :)
    Reply
  • rod
    FYI. This looks like the full quote with context from Sabine Hossenfelder. http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2017/08/you-dont-expand-just-because-universe.html, Tuesday, August 15, 2017, "This is a key point and missing it is origin of much confusion about the expansion of the universe: The solution of general relativity that describes the expanding universe is a solution on average; it is good only on very large distances. But the solutions that describe galaxies are different – and just don’t expand. It’s not that galaxies expand unnoticeably, they just don’t. The full solution, then, is both stitched together: Expanding space between non-expanding galaxies. (Though these solutions are usually only dealt with by computer simulations due to their mathematical complexity.)"
    Reply
  • Helio
    rod said:
    Okay, the conclusion paints a rosy picture for the BB model and early galaxy formation, using simulations. Time will tell here.
    Agreed, but there is hope we will see a "little something to exciting the astronomers" ;). The JWST was designed to see take us to distances never observed before. There is bound to be a little something different to tweak all those model coefficients, etc. There's still that HL Constant variation you've brought up before. Perhaps that will get explained with better data.
    Reply
  • Helio
    rod said:
    Helio, interesting questions. You and I have discussed already that to see the original, pristine gas clouds said to be created during BBN, we would need to look back to z~1100. This report seems focused on galaxies in the z~10 or so range, perhaps a small number a bit larger redshift. Running a simulation from original gas clouds at z=1100 and evolve the universe to z=10, could prove intriguing :)
    At z=1100, there will be too little in the way of real cloud formation. It took a lot of time for the tiny anisotropic density regions to become cloud-like. I have no idea what redshift would be appropriate for these, admittedly.

    There are still a lot of questions, at least from me, about those early periods. We know, or logically assume, in our local galaxies, that things like S/N, or supersonic internal or external flows, in GMCs will trigger cloud fragmentation into lots of stars.

    But what "triggers" those first star formations? Clouds become a little heated when they try to collapse, then they, in turn, expand. Something more is needed. Perhaps there are some solid answers out there already, but I have forgotten them or I've missed them.
    Reply
  • mcswell
    rod said:
    Time will tell here.
    Wait, 14 billion years isn't enough? :)
    Reply