JWST just found a 50‑million‑solar‑mass black hole 750 million years after the Big Bang, with no galaxy around it. That’s not supposed to happen under the standard “stars → galaxies → black holes” model.
It’s pure hydrogen, so it formed before nearby stars had time to seed heavier elements. That leaves a few options: primordial black hole from the Big Bang, direct collapse of a gas cloud, or a galaxy that formed and disappeared.
There are ~300 similar “little red dots” in JWST data. If most are black holes, the early universe was building them in parallel with — or before — galaxies. Either way, the neat timeline in textbooks is wrong.
Note that in spite of the name it's not a "theory" that gives an clear and accurate prediction.
We mix results of many theories, like electromagnetism, general relativity dopler effect, atoms ionization and spectrum, centripetal force, ... to get an accurate prediction and error estimation of how much mass a galaxy must have. Different calculations disagree, so we are forced to try to fix the theory (MOND) or guess there is dome difficut to see mass (dark matter).
The "blowtorch theory" is only a few general ideas and handwaving, without clear and precice calculations. So it's impossible to know if it explains all the current data (without dark matter) or even if the predictions digree so much with the current data that we need even more weird stuff to natch it.
If the theory of abnormal galaxy formation hold up, then the Big Bang was spitting out both simultaneously. Maybe there’s a mathematical “tipping point” for mass where the weight of it crushes the atoms? Resulting in early black holes from abnormal matter… not from a collapse but just from mass being in close proximity. There still so much to learn…
If you draw conclusions from incomplete data, they tend to be wrong. Even Prof. van Dusen and Sherlock Holmes knew that. So if there were any difference, it would be sheer luck.
Well, the black hole isnt hydrogen. This is the gas around it. And being pure hydrogen seems sus as there should be some helium in there according to most models.
Not only that, but getting stars to form using pure hydrogen is tricky. That helium helped early stars collapse and ignite. Not seeing any helium in an early-universe object is a big deal, suggesting some sort of error.
JWST is the best thing to happen to science in decades.
Scientists having to face the fact that their theories aren't perfect and that they don't have all the answers about the universe is a good reminder that it's important to differentiate between actually settled hard science and "best guess at how this works" science.
There are still so many unanswered questions in many hard science fields like physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, etc and it's good for this new generation to not forget that.
"Scientists having to face the fact that their theories aren't perfect" - I think you fundamentally misunderstand how science works, or else you hang out with some extremely arrogant astronomers.
Why do you think they put the JWST up there, if not to get better data and thereby improve our understanding of the universe? If we thought our theories were already perfect, what would be the point in doing more research?
JWST just found a 50‑million‑solar‑mass black hole 750 million years after the Big Bang, with no galaxy around it. That’s not supposed to happen under the standard “stars → galaxies → black holes” model.
It’s pure hydrogen, so it formed before nearby stars had time to seed heavier elements. That leaves a few options: primordial black hole from the Big Bang, direct collapse of a gas cloud, or a galaxy that formed and disappeared.
There are ~300 similar “little red dots” in JWST data. If most are black holes, the early universe was building them in parallel with — or before — galaxies. Either way, the neat timeline in textbooks is wrong.
> the early universe was building them in parallel with — or before — galaxies
Reminds me of the "blowtorch theory"[0] discussed here on HN a while ago.
[0]: https://theeggandtherock.com/p/the-blowtorch-theory-a-new-mo...
HN discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44115973 (187 points | 3 months ago | 180 comments)
Note that in spite of the name it's not a "theory" that gives an clear and accurate prediction.
We mix results of many theories, like electromagnetism, general relativity dopler effect, atoms ionization and spectrum, centripetal force, ... to get an accurate prediction and error estimation of how much mass a galaxy must have. Different calculations disagree, so we are forced to try to fix the theory (MOND) or guess there is dome difficut to see mass (dark matter).
The "blowtorch theory" is only a few general ideas and handwaving, without clear and precice calculations. So it's impossible to know if it explains all the current data (without dark matter) or even if the predictions digree so much with the current data that we need even more weird stuff to natch it.
If the theory of abnormal galaxy formation hold up, then the Big Bang was spitting out both simultaneously. Maybe there’s a mathematical “tipping point” for mass where the weight of it crushes the atoms? Resulting in early black holes from abnormal matter… not from a collapse but just from mass being in close proximity. There still so much to learn…
Was it wrong, or based on incomplete data?
If you draw conclusions from incomplete data, they tend to be wrong. Even Prof. van Dusen and Sherlock Holmes knew that. So if there were any difference, it would be sheer luck.
In most fields it's impossible to have complete data.
https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~gamvrosi/thelastq.html
Both at the same time? Weird question.
Well, the black hole isnt hydrogen. This is the gas around it. And being pure hydrogen seems sus as there should be some helium in there according to most models.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_nucleosynthesis
Not only that, but getting stars to form using pure hydrogen is tricky. That helium helped early stars collapse and ignite. Not seeing any helium in an early-universe object is a big deal, suggesting some sort of error.
Bug fixes:
- Corrected an infrequent issue with getResultingProtonCount that would cause it to always return 1 for certain origin bodies.
(In the merge request comments: "This why we don't let junior devs commit unreviewed code to critical branches, guys.")
N.B. This is a supermassive black hole without a galaxy, not a naked singularity. The cosmic censorship hypothesis is still safe.
The Universe, modestly redacting its genitals from view since 0 + 1 Planck times.
”By reconstructing the vortex, the team directly measured the mass of the object it was orbiting: 50 million times more massive than our sun.”
Is that not an indirect measurement?
It is the most direct measurement that astronomers have. That said, I do agree that the word "directly" should not have been in that sentence.
Even scales measure indirectly.
Am I the only one to see HALs eye here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_9000
Coincidence? I don't think so. /s
JWST is the best thing to happen to science in decades.
Scientists having to face the fact that their theories aren't perfect and that they don't have all the answers about the universe is a good reminder that it's important to differentiate between actually settled hard science and "best guess at how this works" science.
There are still so many unanswered questions in many hard science fields like physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, etc and it's good for this new generation to not forget that.
"Scientists having to face the fact that their theories aren't perfect" - I think you fundamentally misunderstand how science works, or else you hang out with some extremely arrogant astronomers.
Why do you think they put the JWST up there, if not to get better data and thereby improve our understanding of the universe? If we thought our theories were already perfect, what would be the point in doing more research?