Early Massive Galaxies Will Require Theory Overhaul (Again)

Big bang theory didn’t expect massive galaxies so early, but they’ve known about this problem for over a decade.

Astronomers at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) reported an unexpectedly large number of massive galaxies in the early universe. An infrared survey using the VISTA telescope showed many galaxies that had escaped earlier scrutiny. The team led by Karina Caputi counted 574 massive galaxies estimated to have existed just one billion years after the big bang. The big bang is commonly dated at 13.7 billion years ago. Why is that a problem?

In addition, the astronomers found that massive galaxies were more plentiful than had been thought. Galaxies that were previously hidden make up half of the total number of massive galaxies present when the Universe was between 1.1 and 1.5 billion years old. These new results, however, contradict current models of how galaxies evolved in the early Universe, which do not predict any monster galaxies at these early times.

To complicate things further, if massive galaxies are unexpectedly dustier in the early Universe than astronomers predict then even UltraVISTA wouldn’t be able to detect them. If this is indeed the case, the currently-held picture of how galaxies formed in the early Universe may also require a complete overhaul.

There was a dropoff in massive galaxy counts at earlier ages, but as the quote above explains, that may be because the telescope is unable to detect them.

A footnote explains what is meant by massive galaxy: “In this context, ‘massive’ means more than 50 billion times the mass of the Sun. The total mass of the stars in the Milky Way is also close to this figure.”

Update 11/19/15: Quotes on Space.com about this: “their existence so close to the time of the Big Bang calls into question scientists’ best understanding of how large galaxies form” and “There’s basically not enough time for these kinds of objects to form.” The Hubble team is making the excuse that galaxies were more efficient at making stars back then, PhysOrg says, but that sounds like special pleading to dodge the issue. The “unexpected result” of finding “a lot more bright, highly star-forming galaxies in the early universe than scientists previously thought” has “implications for galaxy formation at the earliest times,” the article says. What implications, exactly? That astronomers were totally wrong in their expectations?

What? They were supposed to overhaul their theories years ago. In his video What You’re Not Being Told About Astronomy, Vol II: Our Created Stars and Galaxies, Spike Psarris cited reports from 2007 of mature galaxies 500 million years after the big bang, much earlier than these (see 7/25/07). He quotes Nature in 2009 after more discoveries of early galaxies were reported: “The findings could overturn existing models for the formation and evolution of galaxies… that was the reason for the surprise – that it disagrees so radically with what the predictions told us we should be seeing” (see 4/02/09). As for those “existing models” threatened with overturning, Psarris had earlier showed that astronomers are clueless about how galaxies form at all. This early in their big-bang scenario, there were barely supposed to be stars, let alone massive galaxies. (Incidentally, secular astronomers also consider star formation to be a major unsolved problem; see 2/22/11.)

This article reinforces what we have been reporting since 1/08/2002: the “grand finale came first” in the cosmic fireworks show (see also 1/02/04, 1/23/04, 3/31/06, 8/18/06, 8/11/07, 2/19/08, 1/09/14, etc.). It’s like the Cambrian Explosion in the fossil record. Instead of slow-and-gradual evolution, you have the nearly instantaneous appearance of complex structure. The early mature galaxy problem contradicts evolutionary predictions and models, just like the Cambrian Explosion contradicts Darwinism. Do these independent instances of falsification have something in common? Yes: secular materialism.

Astronomers are like corporate cronies on the government dole who consider themselves too big to fail. They are bankrupt and have promised to overhaul their practices for a dozen years now. It’s time to call them to account. “Get ‘er done,” Larry the Cable Guy would say. We call on the secular astronomers to show us their action plan for a “complete overhaul” right away, or else do the honest thing and quit. Word has it truck companies are hiring.

Recommended article and video: “It’s really not rocket science” by Granville Sewell on Evolution News & Views.