00:03When astronomers first turned on the James Webb Space Telescope and pointed it out into the block of space,
00:09one of the first images they got was this one.
00:12It shows galaxies that are billions of years old, those that were more or less formed at the dawn of
00:17the universe itself.
00:18Now experts say this one, which they estimate is around 13 billion years old, is a bit of an enigma,
00:24as it shouldn't exist at all.
00:26It's called ZF-UDS-7329, and astronomers say the galaxy is too complex to have been created in the early
00:34days after the Big Bang.
00:36The issue is it's around the size of the Milky Way, but it also has around 4 times the number
00:40of stars by mass.
00:42The issue arises because our current dark matter model suggests that it was not in a state to support galaxies
00:46of this size at that time, as it was too smooth.
00:49Those same models outlined that as time went on, dark matter ripples grew because of gravity,
00:53collecting in larger clusters and dragging other elements, namely hydrogen, together with it,
00:58thus allowing it to create larger, more complex galaxies.
01:01Another peculiarity about the galaxy is that it doesn't seem to have changed much after its creation.
01:07The study's authors say this challenge is the standard model of cosmology, adding quote,
01:11The key question now is how they form so fast very early in the universe,
01:15and what mysterious mechanisms lead to stopping them from forming stars abruptly,
01:19when the rest of the universe is doing so.
01:22w
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