1 articles · Updated · The Indian Express · Jul 14
Summary
Hundreds of galaxies seen when the universe was about 400 million to 900 million years old already show the Kormendy relation, indicating some early spheroidal systems were structurally organized far sooner than expected.
JWST deep-field images let IUCAA researchers measure how light was distributed in those distant galaxies, testing whether size and surface brightness followed the same scaling law long observed in nearby spheroidal galaxies.
The result, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, challenges models that pictured infant-universe galaxies as mainly clumpy and chaotic, and sets a new benchmark for simulations of rapid early galaxy assembly.
Nearly 13 billion years later, the same structural rule still governs galaxies, suggesting key architecture of massive systems emerged within the universe's first billion years.
Are orderly 'baby galaxies' a cosmic norm, or just the only ones bright enough for JWST to see?
Does early galaxy order solve the mystery of how supermassive black holes grew so big, so fast?
If the first galaxies were surprisingly mature, is our cosmic evolution timeline fundamentally wrong?
JWST Uncovers Unexpected Structural Order: The Kormendy Relation in the Universe’s First Billion Years
Overview
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has revealed that galaxies formed just 400–900 million years after the Big Bang were already surprisingly well-ordered. These early galaxies followed the Kormendy relation, a key scaling law that links a galaxy’s size and surface brightness. This discovery shows that the same physical processes shaping galaxies today—such as gravity, star formation, and mergers—were already active in the universe’s infancy. Previously, scientists could only study these relations in nearby or much later galaxies because older telescopes lacked the sensitivity to observe such distant systems. JWST’s advanced capabilities have now opened a new window into the early universe.