James Webb Space Telescope Surprises By William Lama, Ph.D
NASA’s Webb Delivers Deepest Infrared Image of Universe Yet | NASA
The new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) images of the cosmos are beautifully awe-inspiring. But to professional astronomers and cosmologists they are extremely surprising. In the flood of technical papers published online since July 12, the authors report that the JWST images show surprisingly many galaxies, galaxies that are surprisingly smooth, surprisingly small and surprisingly old. Lots of surprises, and not necessarily pleasant ones. One paper’s title begins with the candid exclamation: “Panic!” The Big Bang didn't happen | Eric Learner » IAI TV
James Webb Space Telescope
The James Webb Space Telescope is the largest optical telescope in space, with infrared sensitivity designed to view stellar objects formed too early, too distant or too faint for the Hubble Space Telescope. With these new capabilities JWST will be able to observe the earliest formed galaxies and the atmospheres of potentially habitable exoplanets. JWST will not orbit the Earth, like the Hubble Space Telescope, but will actually orbit the Sun a million miles from the Earth. In that orbit the gravitational forces of the Sun and Earth on the satellite precisely balance. That lets the telescope remain in line with the Earth as it moves around the Sun, thus allowing the large sunshield to protect the telescope from the light and heat of the Sun. (See the video) Orbit - Webb/NASA
The JWST is illustrated in the following diagram.
Where is the James Webb telescope? | The US Sun (the-sun.com)
The James Webb's massive gold-plated mirrors that do the most important work are actually formed of 18 hexagonal parts that cleverly unpack and click together like a perfect puzzle. On July 11, 2022, NASA revealed that the telescope captured its first full-color images. The spectacular images may be viewed on the Webb telescope gallery page Gallery (webbtelescope.org) For example, here is an image of the Cartwheel galaxy formed as the result of a high-speed collision that occurred about 400 million years ago.
Cartwheel Spiral Galaxy – NASA JWST image
The Cartwheel is composed of two rings, a bright inner ring and a colorful outer ring. Much of the character of the large, spiral galaxy that existed before the collision remains, including its rotating arms. This leads to the “spokes” that inspired the name of the Cartwheel Galaxy, which are the bright red streaks seen between the inner and outer rings.
Surprises!
Why do the JWST images inspire panic among cosmologists? The Big Bang Hypothesis that the universe began 13.8 billion years ago at a point and has been expanding ever since has been defended for decades as unquestionable truth by the vast majority of cosmological theorists. The new data is causing these theorists to panic. “I find myself lying awake at three in the morning,” says Alison Kirkpatrick, an astronomer at the University of Kansas, “and wondering if everything I’ve done is wrong.”
The dependence of surface brightness (SB) of identical objects as a function of the redshift z is a powerful test for the expansion of the Universe. According to the Big Bang Standard model, the SB is expected to decrease very rapidly with distance, as shown in the following graph (red curve).
The Big Bang Never Happened - SAND (scienceandnonduality.com)
The horizontal axis is the redshift z of the observed light, a measure of distance. The vertical axis is the measured surface brightness of the galaxy. The falling red curve is the Big Bang prediction being proportional to 1/(1+z)^4. Data from the Hubble space telescope are shown scattered around the flat line showing that the surface brightness is independent of distance. The Webb data extend this non-dependence to higher redshift. (distance)
Another surprise involves the age of distant galaxies. The most distant galaxies in the JWST images are observed as they were just 400-500 million years after the Big Bang. Yet spectral measures of these galaxies reveal stars that are more than a billion years old. Note that’s before the Bang. Oops. Eric Lerner predicted these and several other surprises before the JWST was launched.
I assessed the status of the Big Bang Theory in a Palos Verdes Pulse article.
Big Bang Cosmology - Believe it or Not By William Lama Ph.D. — Palos Verdes Pulse
My conclusion was that essential elements of the theory – dark matter, dark energy and inflation – are TBD. Now I’d have to add the JWST surprises.
Dr. William Lama has a PhD in physics from the University of Rochester. Taught physics in college and worked at Xerox as a principle scientist and engineering manager. Upon retiring, joined the PVIC docents; served on the board of the RPV Council of Home Owners Associations; served as a PV Library trustee for eight years; served on the PV school district Measure M oversight committee; was president of the Malaga Cove Homeowner's Association. Writes about science, technology and politics, mostly for his friends. email: wlama2605@gmail.com
