Researchers have Stumbled Upon Evidence of an Undetectable Universe. David Wall – Getty ImagesThe JADES survey conducted by the James Webb Space Telescope recently identified a galaxy that should not be visible, as it existed a mere 300 million years after the Big Bang. During this era in cosmic history, the universe was veiled by neutral hydrogen, rendering most entities and events invisible until almost a billion years later.Presently, experts speculate that the luminance may be emanating from the earliest stars or from emissions produced by a supermassive black hole at the heart of the galaxy. However, the exact origin of the light remains a mystery.Deep within this vast universe lies stars, galaxies, and entities so remote that the light we perceive from them is billions of years old. Yet, there exists one ancient light that defies explanation.As part of the James Webb Space Telescope Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES), NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) captured an anomaly that should be beyond our visual reach—the galaxy JADES-GS-z13-1. This galaxy emerged a mere 330 million years after the Big Bang, a time when the cosmos was in its infancy.Webb managed to detect GS-z13-1 by noting distinct Lyman-alpha emissions originating from the galaxy. These emissions occur when an electron within a neutral hydrogen atom is excited by a sufficiently energetic photon and are prevalent throughout the universe. However, what makes this observation remarkable is that, technically, we should not be able to detect Lyman-alpha emissions from a period just 330 million years post-Big Bang.Enveloped in neutral hydrogen, which absorbs light, the universe was predominantly opaque during its initial stages, remaining so until approximately a billion years after its inception. It was only during the reionization epoch that the light emitted by stars became potent enough to dismantle atoms, strip away their electrons, and escape through the shroud. With the neutral hydrogen ionized, indicating a positive charge due to electron loss, the universe transitioned into a transparent state. This marked the first instance when Lyman-alpha emissions became detectable.However, considering this transition materialized around a billion years after the Big Bang, the visibility of GS-z13-1, which existed during a period of obscured light, is confounding.“The unexpected Lyman-alpha emission suggests the galaxy is a significant generator and emitter of ionizing photons,” stated researchers from NASA and ESA in a study published in the journal Nature. “This implies that massive, hot stars or an active galactic nucleus (AGN) have instigated early reionization to avert complete suppression of Lyman-alpha.”A plausible explanation for the light source could be the initial stars—known as Population III or Pop III stars. These stars are believed to have been substantially more massive and luminous than contemporary stars, and confirming that the Lyman-alpha emissions stem from Pop III
Supermassive black holes consume such a large amount of matter that they release massive and intensely bright streams of gas, believed by scientists to possibly have played a role in reionizing a specific part of the universe ahead of schedule. Currently, there are many unknowns in this area of study. However, scientists appreciate, albeit with some confusion, the presence of this ancient source of light.
