NASA’s James Webb telescope catches glimpse of possible ‘dark stars’ for the first time – which could solve one of the universe’s biggest mysteries

By William On Jul 17, 2023

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has detected what were thought to be legendary “dark stars” that could solve one of the universe’s greatest mysteries.

A team of astronomers led by the University of Texas (UT) at Austin identified three potential “dark stars” that formed about 320 million years after the Big Bang, making them the earliest stars ever seen by the human eye.

The image shows three faint dots glowing in the darkness of space, but astronomers think the tiny specs could lead to the uncovering of the elusive dark matter.

Dark stars can only exist if dark matter creates heat in the core, preventing the stars from collapsing and swelling, which the team found in JWST’s observations.

Although dark matter makes up about 85 percent of the universe, its nature has eluded scientists. The only evidence of its existence is the gravitational effect it appears to have on visible matter.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has detected three bright cosmic objects that could finally prove the existence of dark matter

However, if the recent findings are confirmed, dark stars could reveal the nature of the non-luminous material.

Dark stars have been fabled in the scientific community since it was first proposed by the UT team in 2007.

In a new study published in PNASthese researchers proudly announced that their hunch may be correct.

The team believes dark stars were the only type that could have existed in the early universe, which would be “almost entirely composed of hydrogen and helium from the Big Bang.”

But dark matter would heat the cosmic objects instead of nuclear fusion like modern stars.

“They are very bright diffuse swollen objects and become very massive. In fact, they can grow to ten million solar masses with up to ten billion solar luminosities,” researchers wrote.

The three candidate dark stars (JADES-GS-z13-0, JADES-GS-z12-0 and JADES-GS-z11-0) were spotted in galaxies in December 2022 during observations of JWST by the Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES ).

After further analysis, the JADES team determined that the three stars formed about 320 million to 400 million years after the Big Bang.

A team of astronomers led by the University of Texas (UT) at Austin identified three potential “dark stars” that formed about 320 million years after the Big Bang that could power the elusive material

A recent study published last week suggests the Big Bang happened 26.7 billion years ago, but UT’s research is based on previous evidence that it happened 13.7 billion years ago.

Katherine Freese, an astrophysicist at UT, said in a statement: “Looking at the James Webb data, there are two competing possibilities for these objects.

‘One is that they are galaxies containing millions of ordinary stars of population III. The other is that they are dark stars. And believe it or not, one dark star has enough light to compete with an entire galaxy.’

Although dark matter has yet to be proven, scientists believe it is made of a new type of elementary particle, containing the smallest known building blocks of the universe.

The team believes the new particles are Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, which do not absorb or emit light and do not interact strongly with other particles.

‘When they collide, these particles self-destruct, deposit heat in collapsing hydrogen clouds and transform into brightly shining dark stars, say UT researchers.

“The identification of supermassive dark stars would open up the possibility of learning about the dark matter based on their observed properties.”

The idea of dark matter, initially known as “missing matter,” was formulated in 1933, after the discovery that the mass of all the stars in the Coma cluster of galaxies used about one percent of the mass needed to prevent galaxies escape the cluster. gravity.

Decades later, in the 1970s, American astronomers Vera Rubin and Kent Ford discovered anomalies in the orbits of stars in galaxies, reports NBC News.

The discovery led to a theory among the scientific community that the anomalies were caused by masses of invisible “dark matter” in and around galaxies.