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TagJames Webb Space Telescope and Big Bang

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abstract scene of overcoming the temporary space

The Big Bang: Last Summer, Doubt Suddenly Exploded. Why?

Why did a story that cast doubt on the Big Bang quickly go viral about a year ago? An experimental physicist offers some thoughts
Science is more likely to be a decade-long fuss over the ninth decimal place of the muon than about Contact! or Boldly Go. But real learning is like that. Read More ›
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The Big Bang

James Webb Space Telescope Shows Big Bang Didn’t Happen? Wait…

The unexpected new data coming back from the telescope are inspiring panic among astronomers

This story was #1 in 2022 at Mind Matters News in terms of reader numbers. As we approach the New Year, we are rerunning the top ten stories of 2022, based on reader interest. In “James Webb Space Telescope shows Big Bang didn’t happen? Wait…”, our News division looked at reports that the unexpected new data coming back from the telescope were inspiring panic among astronomers: Webb was expected to merely confirm the Standard Model of the universe but its images are “surprisingly smooth, surprisingly small and surprisingly old.” (August 13, 2022) Our view at the time: 1) It’s no surprise if the Webb disconfirmed some widely accepted assumptions. New vistas do that. In fact, that’s how we know for Read More ›

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Big bang explosion in space

Webb Telescope Builders “Are Questioning Previous Science”

In an interview at Futurism, Webb astronomer Garth Illingworth shares how the new findings are shaking up what we think we know about the universe

Futurism’s Maggie Harrison recently interviewed UC Santa Cruz astronomer Garth Illingworth, one of the developers of the James Webb Space Telescope. His observations put the astronomers’ astonishment at the unexpected new findings of very old, developed galaxies in perspective: And I would just say, you know, when I was sitting there watching the first images, I was just blown away by their beauty and the character there, the information. But one of the things I was thinking afterwards was: in that hour, I saw, like, six sets of data. I have to say, that’s more data than I’ve ever seen from anything in any sort of reasonable time period in my whole life. Scientists are going to be working on Read More ›

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The Big Bang

At Scientific American: Webb Is Breaking the Big Bang Paradigm

That cosmic blast has been as much of a cultural and philosophical concept as a scientific one — hence the angst over challenging findings

Last weekend, we said — whatever one thinks about the Big Bang, — it was evident that the James Webb Space Telescope had shaken up astronomy. At Scientific American, science writer Jonathan O’Callaghan seems to agree: In the weeks and months following JWST’s findings of surprisingly mature “early” galaxies, blindsided theorists and observers alike have been scrambling to explain them. Could the bevy of anomalously big and bright early galaxies be illusory, perhaps because of flaws in analysis of the telescope’s initial observations? If genuine, could they somehow be explained by standard cosmological models? Or, just maybe, were they the first hints that the universe is more strange and complex than even our boldest theories had supposed? At stake is Read More ›

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Deep Space Cosmic Chaos, Galaxies, Stars, Nebula Abstract Art Created Using Authentic Imaging Data From HI NASA

Re the Webb Findings Uproar: Who Owns the Big Bang Anyhow?

Researcher and science writer Eric Lerner would never have attracted the attention he has in recent weeks if the Webb findings were not disturbing to many cosmologists

The Big Bang is a philosophical — as well as a scientific — presence in many people’s minds. It seems clear, from the the ongoing kerfuffle and vigorous denials that the James Webb Space Telescope findings shook many of them up. Both science writers and scientists sense this. For example, For a long time, for instance, scientists believed the universe’s earliest, oldest galaxies to be small, slightly chaotic, and misshapen systems. But according to the Washington Post, JWST-captured imagery has revealed those galaxies to be shockingly massive, not to mention balanced and well-formed — a finding that challenges, and will likely rewrite, long-held understandings about the origins of our universe. “The models just don’t predict this,” Garth Illingworth, an astronomer Read More ›

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The Big Bang

James Webb Space Telescope Shows Big Bang Didn’t Happen? Wait…

The unexpected new data coming back from the telescope are inspiring panic among astronomers

Physicist Eric J. Lerner comes to the point: To everyone who sees them, the new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) images of the cosmos are beautifully awe-inspiring. But to most professional astronomers and cosmologists, they are also extremely surprising—not at all what was predicted by theory. In the flood of technical astronomical papers published online since July 12, the authors report again and again that the 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!” Why do the JWST’s images inspire panic among cosmologists? And what theory’s predictions are they contradicting? The papers don’t actually say. The Read More ›