Webb Found Giants That Turned Darkness into Light ⚡ экспресс
Ultra-deep observations by the James Webb Space Telescope of two galaxies from the early universe (just ~600 million years old) have revealed clear signs of powerful stellar winds and strong helium emission. Only models with very massive stars (over 100 solar masses) could explain these features—stars that are almost nonexistent in the modern universe. The analysis suggests that the stars in these galaxies are extremely young (1–2 million years) and produce ionizing photons far more efficiently than previously thought. It seems that during cosmic dawn, such giants were common and set the pace for the evolution of the first galaxies.
The light from two galaxies, caught by the James Webb telescope, traveled 13 billion years to us, beginning just 600 million years after the Big Bang. Breaking this light into colors (spectral analysis), astronomers saw not just distant galaxies but true lighthouses: within them blazed giant stars.
It turned out that stellar heavyweights, 200–300 times the mass of the Sun, raged there. Their ferocious winds and fierce ultraviolet light left clear fingerprints in the emitted helium and other elements. Like colossal searchlights, they pierced through the surrounding cold hydrogen, clearing their path and making the universe transparent. Without these giants, the expanding cosmos would have remained a murky hydrogen broth, never giving rise to smaller stars or planets.
The irony is that they lived only a moment—about one and a half million years, shorter than the blink of a cosmic eye. Yet it was this ultra-bright flare that ignited light in the previously impenetrable darkness and forever changed the face of the universe.
🎯 Today's record-holder R136a1 is 265 times heavier than the Sun, but the young universe churned out such stars by the hundreds—they were commonplace.