A REVOLUTION in our understanding of the universe is coming. Like so many previous upheavals, it is currently unclear exactly what the trigger might be. But what is clear, almost a year on from the release of its first images, is that the James Webb Space Telescope’s observations of far distant galaxies are the most likely source of transformational insights.
Yes, this is precisely what JWST was designed for. But it is worth remembering that before its launch, which came years later than planned and after the budget had spiralled out of control, some astronomers were privately speculating on what progress their science could have made if only JWST’s gargantuan budget had been apportioned to a series of smaller missions.
Now, there can be no doubt that the $10 billion telescope has delivered on its game-changing promise. It has peered inside nearby star-forming regions, revealed stars in their death throes and successfully probed the atmospheric composition of planets far beyond our solar system. But it is the images of the very distant universe that contain the seeds of cosmological revolution.
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Astronomers are now able to analyse in unprecedented detail galaxies dating from just a few hundred million years after the big bang. As we explore in our feature “What the huge young galaxies seen by JWST tell us about the universe”, what they are finding is casting our best explanations for how the universe evolved into doubt. That story is full of twists and turns. But even if the current model of cosmic evolution escapes this latest challenge, there will be more to come as JWST’s data haul continues.
A single image recently captured by the telescope shows 45,000 galaxies, 700 of which are brand new discoveries and some of the youngest galaxies ever seen. Any of these has the potential to add to the conundrum facing cosmologists.
Either we don’t understand how galaxies form or we don’t understand how the universe came to be the way it is – or both. Not bad for a telescope that some thought was a colossal waste of money.
