The James Webb space telescope keeps finding new things. These discoveries really change how we understand the universe. This telescope looks far back in time and shows us things we didn't know before. But now, a big surprise! A new discovery has changed what we thought we knew about the universe's size. It might mean we were totally wrong about how big it is.
In a recent scientific paper, researchers shared new findings from the web telescope. They found objects that appeared just 120 million years after the big bang. This discovery might shake up our understanding of the standard cosmological model. Astronomers say this surprises them because they didn't expect to see such things in the early universe images taken by the web telescope. It challenges the idea that the universe is very old but not infinitely old, as previously thought. Einstein's assumption that the universe had no beginning point was proven wrong. This revelation tells us that our assumptions have been mostly incorrect. We're confident that there's much more to discover.
Consider this: when the web telescope gazes as far into space as possible, it can see only about 46.5 billion light-years away. This span is known as the Hubble radius or Hubble sphere, which defines the limit of our visible Universe. The farthest galaxies spotted by the James Webb Telescope are also within this Hubble sphere. For instance, the most remote Galaxy ever found, Maisie's Galaxy, existed just 450 million years after the big bang and falls within the Hubble sphere.
However, our universe is expanding, making this Hubble region grow larger. Objects beyond this region may become visible because of this expansion. But here's the intriguing part: the universe is not only expanding but also accelerating in its expansion. Beyond the Hubble sphere's edge, this expansion occurs faster than the speed of light. Due to this rapid expansion, the Hubble region won't keep increasing indefinitely. Extremely distant objects' light attempting to reach us is affected by this acceleration. The space between us and those far-off objects stretches so rapidly that their emitted light cannot reach us. Essentially, the light from these distant stars and galaxies is moving away from us faster than it can reach us. This means the Hubble sphere will stop growing once it reaches a limit called the cosmic horizon, defining what we term the observable universe.
Music: Scott Buckley
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