James Webb telescope data suggests undiscovered cosmic force could be behind Universe’s expansion

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What is the James Webb Space Telescope?

According to NASA, the JWST sees the universe using infrared radiation, a form of light that we feel as heat and is invisible to human eyes.

There is something missing in our understanding of the Universe to explain its expansion, known as dark energy, that began after the Big Bang, according to a new study using James Webb Space Telescope observations.

A team of scientists published their findings this week using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to cross-check the physics problem known as "Hubble Tension," which refers to Hubble Space Telescope observations over 30 years that show the universe is expanding faster than expected. The mystery phenomenon of why the universe is expanding is known to cosmologists as "dark energy."

A representation of the evolution of the universe over 13.77 billion years. The far left depicts the earliest moment we can now probe, when a period of "inflation" produced a burst of exponential growth in the universe. For the next several billion years, the expansion of the universe gradually slowed down as the matter in the universe pulled on itself via gravity. More recently, the expansion has begun to speed up again as the repulsive effects of dark energy have come to dominate the expansion of the universe.

(NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center)

The new study follows up on the initial findings NASA shared in March by the SH0ES (Supernova H0 for the Equation of State of Dark Energy) team led by Nobel Prize physicist Adam Riess.

Since the initial findings, Riess' team has used two years of JWST data to rule out that what Hubble was seeing was a technological fluke or error. The study authors combined independent data from other teams working to refine the Hubble constant, including the Carnegie-Chicago Hubble Program, "for the most precise determination yet."

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According to the team, observations from both Hubble and JWST aligned closely.

"The discrepancy between the observed expansion rate of the universe and the predictions of the standard model suggests that our understanding of the universe may be incomplete. With two NASA flagship telescopes now confirming each other’s findings, we must take this [Hubble tension] problem very seriously – it’s a challenge but also an incredible opportunity to learn more about our universe," said Riess, a Thomas J. Barber Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University.

This collage features three views of Messier 106, also known as NGC 4258. The first two images show the target in visible light as seen by KPNO and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The image on the right is a new image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope in the infrared.  This is a nearby spiral galaxy that resides roughly 23 million light-years away in the constellation Canes Venatici.

(NASA/ESA)

However, the problem with science is that answering one question creates many more. Cosmologists say it might be time to rethink the standard cosmological model and begin looking for something yet to be discovered that could improve our understanding of the universe.

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"One possible explanation for the Hubble tension would be if there was something missing in our understanding of the early universe, such as a new component of matter – early dark energy – that gave the universe an unexpected kick after the big bang," said Johns Hopkins cosmologist Marc Kamionkowski, who was not involved in the new study but helped calculate the Hubble constant.

While daily life on Earth is not impacted by the Universe's expansion, understanding this problem could help scientists calculate other fundamental elements of the cosmos.