Problems for the Big Bang from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)

JWST Image credit NASA, ESA, CSA, STSci.

Introduction to the Problem:
The images being obtained by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), such as the one above, have been awe-inspiring to many. They show a great multitude of brilliant galaxies in the vastness of the universe, and so far back in time that they are very close to the inception of the cosmos, or, colloquially, the moment of the Big Bang. Many scientists have been surprised by the number of galaxies; thousands of times the anticipated number of galaxies have been imaged. “No one was expecting anything like this,” says Michael Boylan-Kolchin of the University of Texas, Austin [1]. “Galaxies are exploding out of the woodwork,” says Rachel Somerville of the Flatiron Institute [1]. “This is way outside the box of what models were predicting,” says Garth Illingworth of the University of California (UC), Santa Cruz [1].

Since the first results came in on 12th July 2022, a series of scientific papers has also registered surprise, disbelief and even panic! Indeed, “Panic” was the first word used in the title to an article about JWST results by 16 astrophysicists led by Leonardo Ferreira [2]. Authors of other papers report that there are many more full-sized galaxies than expected; many stars seem over a billion years old, and had an abundance of elements that theory suggested should have taken over 5 billion years to build up. Yet this multitude of mature galaxies with smooth disks and neat spiral arms is only 235 to 500 million years out from the beginning of it all --the Big Bang event (BB). All the new data flies in the face of BB theory which has been built up over the last 75 years and taught that way publicly by the BB theorists. These theorists are facing a crisis. “Right now, I find myself lying awake at three in the morning,” says Alison Kirkpatrick, an astronomer at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, "and wondering if everything I've done is wrong.""[3].

Summarizing the Big Bang Model:
The many scientific papers contrast the JWST data with the standard BB model. In that model, it is postulated that, for some time after the beginning, there was a dark period with no galaxies or stars. It was initially expected that this dark period would last for some 500 million atomic years up to 1 billion years after the BB [4]. After that, galaxies should only gradually appear and their numbers start to build up. These early galaxies were expected to be ragged and even disrupting each other until full-sized galaxies had formed and stabilized.

This Big Bang model, which these astrophysicists and cosmologists have been promoting, is based on gravitational interactions forming all structures in the universe. In summary, it goes something like this: After the initial BB event, matter had to cool down, form neutral atoms, and by a gradual process of gravitational agglomeration, organize itself to form the first stars & then very small galaxies. These very small galaxies then collided and interacted with each other to build up bigger galaxies and the gravitational process continued to eventually form much larger, full-sized galaxies. The stars within those galaxies built up the various elements in their interiors by a process of nuclear burning and then, at the end of their life cycle, exploded these elements into their environs. It is thought that it would take 3 successive generations of such stars to provide the proportions of the various elements and their observed quantities.

Distance of Images from the BB Origin:
Galaxy distances are measured by their redshifts designated by the letter “z.” The higher the number the more distant they are and hence closer to the initial BB event. The earliest galaxy seen by Hubble space telescope had a redshift of z = 11, thought to be about 400 million years after the BB. This was a surprise, since it was so close to the Big Bang. [5].  They expected the earliest galaxy to be up to one billion years after the BB.  But more surprises were in store.

The Webb telescope was expected to penetrate the dark period to z = 20 or about 180 million years after the BB [6]. The initial Webb telescope results encompass redshifts from z = 11 back to z = 16.7. This latter value translates to 235 million years after the BB [7]. In other words, this telescope’s first exploration is looking at structures that were in existence from about 400 million years right back to only 235 million years after the Big Bang [5, 6, 7]. This has caused some problems with the standard model.

Galaxies Far More Numerous than Expected
First, in contrast to the BB model, which predicts only a very few disorganized galaxies at the beginning, the galaxies become more numerous, not less, as the moment of the BB is neared. At a redshift of z = 5 galaxies are 10 times more numerous than theory predicted [8]. At redshifts greater than z = 10, galaxies are 100,000 times more numerous than expected [8].

Galaxies Fully Mature Extremely Early:
Second, these distant, early galaxies are fully mature, with smooth disks and neat spiral arms [2, 8]. For this to happen just 235 million years after the BB is impossibly early for standard cosmology.  Even the possibility that some galaxies seen in the Webb telescope are 400 million years after the beginning defies their model. The problem is much worse if they are at the minimum distance for this data set of 235 million years from the BB.

Galaxies Massive Without Any Sign of Mergers:
Third, there is no sign of galaxy mergers building up to these bigger galaxies [2]. And these galaxies are full-sized spirals, like our own Milky Way system. The masses of these galaxies range from 10^9 (one billion) up to 10¹¹ (one hundred billion) suns which is normal for large galaxies [8]. In other words, these galaxies give no appearance of being built up by mergers with smaller objects, but they already exist, fully formed, extremely close to the origin of the cosmos.

Galaxies Extremely Brilliant:
Fourth, many of those early galaxies are brilliant. The measurements suggest they may be up to 600 times more brilliant than galaxies in our immediate area [9].  The expectation had been that galaxies would start out relatively fainter and build up mass and brightness with time.  That is not what the Webb telescope shows.  The original early brightness of these galaxies, as well as the brilliance of their central quasars, is very much in contrast with the comparative lack of that early brightness that we see today in our own galaxy and nearby galaxies. [10].

Stars in these Galaxies Appear Mature:
Fifth, the Webb telescope has a variety of filters which allow the colors of the stars in these galaxies, and their composition, to be determined. Gravitational astronomy has a color-mass relationship which gives the approximate age of the stars, as does the amount of hydrogen present, if nuclear burning has occurred.  Using these factors indicates that stars in these extremely early galaxies show an equivalent of 1 billion years of burning [11]. Yet these galaxies are not even 500 million years from the BB, let alone having had a billion years of burning for their stars once they had formed. This unexpected result calls into question this whole BB approach to the age of stars.

Chemical Elements Present in the Galaxies:

The Near-Infrared Spectrograph on the James Webb Space Telescope identified the chemical composition (bottom)    of a galaxy that emitted light 13.1 billion years ago (top). Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STSci

Sixth, in this image from the Webb telescope, the filters and other equipment have determined, from the characteristic wavelengths of emitted light, that the elements hydrogen, oxygen and neon are present and prominent [12]. This is a problem for current Big Bang theory. At this early stage in galaxy development, only the elements hydrogen and helium should be prominent with small quantities of lithium and beryllium. The elements oxygen and neon were not meant to be present initially, but rather built up in the interiors of stars and then exploded out into the host galaxy. According to BB theory, the time for these elements to become prominent in galaxies is of the order of billions of years. Yet here they are enriching a galaxy only a few hundred million years after the origin.

JWST Data Question Accelerating Expansion:
Seventh, one class of statements by astronomers is confusing when the Webb telescope data are considered. These astronomers are locked into a scenario with an accelerating expansion of the universe, when in fact the data not only disagree, but disprove that. A word of explanation is needed to see the problem. Under ordinary circumstances, an object of a given size will look smaller and smaller with increasing distance; the farther away from you it is, the smaller it looks. However, with the accelerating expansion of the cosmos, a theory in vogue since about 2000, a different optical effect kicks in. Beyond a certain point when distance has already made them small, objects should then begin to look larger and larger with distance, not smaller and smaller. This is because their light is meant to have left them when they were much closer to us.

As a result of this theoretical accelerating expansion, astronomers and cosmologists were expecting the galaxies to look larger than would normally be expected for that distance. Instead, it can be shown that they were the right size for that distance under ordinary circumstances, but smaller than the accelerating model predicted. Since these scientists still held to accelerating expansion, the only way they could explain these results was if these galaxies were very small. This ignores the fact that these galaxies had masses up to 100 billion suns with well-ordered disks and neat spiral arms. If they truly were as small as these cosmologists claim, the density of these galaxies would be impossibly high. All the other data indicate these galaxies are approximately the same size as our Milky Way system, as referenced by other researchers [8]. Since the accumulation of data show that the effects of accelerating expansion are not present, then different options should be considered [13].

Summary of Results from the Webb Telescope:
In summary, the JWST, or Webb telescope, has imaged galaxies ranging from 235 million years out to 400 million years after the BB beginning. There are little or no signs of galaxy mergers occurring. However, these galaxies have masses from 1 billion up to 100 billion stars like our sun. They are also fully mature and have smooth disks and neat spiral arms. The galaxies are up to 100,000 times more numerous than expected and are very much closer to the moment of the Big Bang than any theory predicted. Furthermore, their brilliance, up to 600 times that of galaxies in our own area, contrasts with the expectation that galaxies start off small and faint, and increase in mass and brilliance with time. Despite being so close to the beginning, the stars which make up these galaxies seem mature as they have the color characteristics and a hydrogen abundance associated with an age of about one billion years. This is supported by the presence of other chemical elements. Finally, the Webb telescope data indicate that the expected effects of accelerated cosmic expansion are not present. So there is quite a bit that needs to be re-examined.

Conclusion:
From the above abbreviated list of Webb telescope information, it appears that the cosmos started off in an almost pristine condition, then faded with time. It also appears the Big Bang Model is in need of a total overhaul, or perhaps a new approach altogether is required. It is apparent that full maturity and brilliance for galaxies and stars was achieved as early as 235 million years after the Big Bang. With the standard model based on gravitational interactions, this is an impossibility, even given the most favorable conditions.

There are a few alternatives left to consider. A key one involves plasma physics. Anthony Peratt in LANL showed that plasma interactions can form all the various types of galaxies very quickly [14]. Reference [15] applies these principles to recent astronomical discoveries. Using all this information, it seems possible, using known physics, to formulate a model different from the standard BB, but still in conformity with the JWST data and its time constraints. I have attempted to show how this is done in this video.

Barry Setterfield, 19th August, 2022.

REFERENCES:
[1] https://www.science.org/content/article/webb-telescope-reveals-unpredicted-bounty-bright-galaxies-early-universe
[2] Panic! At the disks…Leonardo Ferreira et al., https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.09428
[3] Alison Kirkpatrick, Astronomer, Uni. of Kansas in Lawrence, https://twitter.com/AkAstronomy/status/1552350497729904640
[4] https://stardate.org/astro-guide/galaxy-formation
[5] https://www.space.com/11386-galaxies-formation-big-bang-hubble-telescope.html
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_the_universe
[7] https://www.ed.ac.uk/news/2022/edinburgh-astronomers-find-most-distant-galaxy
[8] A very early onset of massive galaxy formation, Ivo Labbe et al., https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.12446 Accepted by Nature Journal.
[9] Early results from GLASS-JWST III:  Galaxy candidates from z =9 to z= 15, Marco Castellano et al.  https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.09436
[10] Quasars, redshifts and controversies, pages 1-4. H. Arp, Interstellar Media,1987.
[11] https://interestingengineering.com/science/james-webb-telescope-will-reveal-dawn-of-cosmos
[12] https://cen.acs.org/physical-chemistry/astrochemistry/first-James-Webb-Space-Telescope/100/i25
[13] Observations contradict galaxy size and surface brightness predictions… E.J. Lerner,   Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 477, Issue 3, July 2018, Pages 3185–3196,    https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/sty728
[14] A.L. Peratt, Transactions on Plasma Science PS-14 (6), pp.763-778 (December 1986).
[15] A.L. Peratt, Physics of the Plasma Universe,  2nd Edition (Springer-Verlag, 2015)
[16] Plasma Astronomy and the Bible, Barry Setterfield, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J6rbzuhsKM