James Webb Telescope Updates

[Halbhh]

Astronomers Say They Have Spotted the Universe’s First Stars | Quanta Magazine

Theory has it that “Population III” stars brought light to the cosmos. The James Webb Space Telescope may have just glimpsed them.

www.quantamagazine.org

sjastro you may find this above of interest.

And I think definitely this:

Standard Model of Cosmology Survives JWST’s Surprising Finds | Quanta Magazine

Reports that the James Webb Space Telescope killed the reigning cosmological model turn out to have been exaggerated. But astronomers still have much to learn from distant galaxies glimpsed by Webb.

www.quantamagazine.org

​

 

[Halbhh]

Theory has it that “Population III” stars brought light to the cosmos. The James Webb Space Telescope may have just glimpsed them.

The largest stars in the present-day universe are a couple hundred times more massive than our sun. The first stars could have had as much as 100,000 times the sun’s mass

Astronomers Say They Have Spotted the Universe’s First Stars | Quanta Magazine

Theory has it that “Population III” stars brought light to the cosmos. The James Webb Space Telescope may have just glimpsed them.

www.quantamagazine.org

 

[Tinker Grey]

Theory has it that “Population III” stars brought light to the cosmos. The James Webb Space Telescope may have just glimpsed them.

The largest stars in the present-day universe are a couple hundred times more massive than our sun. The first stars could have had as much as 100,000 times the sun’s mass

Astronomers Say They Have Spotted the Universe’s First Stars | Quanta Magazine

Theory has it that “Population III” stars brought light to the cosmos. The James Webb Space Telescope may have just glimpsed them.

www.quantamagazine.org

I don't know about mass, but several existing stars appear to have a million times the sun's volume: List of largest known stars - Wikipedia

 

[Bob Crowley]

When we look at these first stars, we're seeing what they looked like billions of years ago if our current dating techniques are correct.

What they actually look like now and how big they would be if we were much closer is anybody's guess.

The sun could blow up and we wouldn't know about it for over 8 minutes. Then of course we'd be well and truly aware.

 

[AV1611VET]

The sun could blow up and we wouldn't know about it for over 8 minutes.

We always get the news late.

 

[Halbhh]

I don't know about mass, but several existing stars appear to have a million times the sun's volume: List of largest known stars - Wikipedia

Interestingly, it's modeled that we might find such early stars (no longer in existence, but we are getting their light from over 13 bn years ago) at 100,000 solar masses, and with some varieties, hold on to your hat, of such pop 3 expanded red stars that might even have a diameter comparable to the size of our solar system. If such existed, as you can instantly guess (if you are familiar much with star sizes and distances), such a size would be very many orders of magnitude beyond a mere 1M times the volume of our sun. Is that fun or what?

 

[Halbhh]

We always get the news late.

ah, if you'd read all my posts (I'd not expect you to tho...)...you'd have gotten some certain likely outcomes guessed at that were in the 2nd article above published on Jan 30th a few weeks back, not so late...

 

[AV1611VET]

ah, if you'd read all my posts (I'd not expect you to tho...)...you'd have gotten some certain likely outcomes guessed at that were in the 2nd article above published on Jan 30th a few weeks back, not so late...

That was actually a joke.

Sun goes dark, and we don't hear about it until eight minutes later.

 

[Tinker Grey]

Interestingly, it's modeled that we might find such early stars (no longer in existence, but we are getting their light from over 13 bn years ago) at 100,000 solar masses, and with some varieties, hold on to your hat, of such pop 3 expanded red stars that might even have a diameter comparable to the size of our solar system. If such existed, as you can instantly guess (if you are familiar much with star sizes and distances), such a size would be very many orders of magnitude beyond a mere 1M times the volume of our sun. Is that fun or what?

Your point is valid. But, I'll point out my own math error. The largest stars in that link are about 1000 times the radius. As 4/3*pi*r^3, they are 1 billion times the volume.

 

[Halbhh]

Your point is valid. But, I'll point out my own math error. The largest stars in that link are about 1000 times the radius. As 4/3*pi*r^3, they are 1 billion times the volume.

I get something ~ 300 bn volume ratio of the solar system to the sun, re if you use Neptune's orbit (which is conservative enough): Diameter of the Solar System

 

[sjastro]

The reason why Population III stars are so massive is the temperature of the Universe during the reionization era when the first stars formed was around 60K as compared to 2.7K today.
As a result the primoradial gas clouds from the reionization era composed mainly of hydrogen and helium with some lithium and beryllium existed at higher temperatures compared to the molecular gas clouds in the present universe.

The Jeans mass Mj is the mass of a spherical cloud of interstellar gas large enough in order to contract under its own weight.
Mj is a function of temperature, the higher temperatures of the reionization era meant Mj was higher than it is now.
For a star to form from a gas cloud under gravitational collapse, the mass of the cloud must exceed the Jeans mass.

Since Population III stars are ultra massive they were short lived and ended up as core collapsed supernova.
None have existed into the present.

 

[Neogaia777]

What they actually look like now and how big they would be if we were much closer is anybody's guess.

It's fairly easy to figure out or guess, they no longer exist, and nothing (or rather everything) that we are seeing there no longer exists, etc, and the universe there, looks, or is now at the very same age and stage there, as it is now here, etc...

Which can then make you wonder then, if "now" is a relative term then, etc...? and I pretty much think it is, etc... which basically means that the universe is all at the same actual age and stage pretty much everywhere, etc... which is probably as it is all right now here, etc... (maybe anyway, etc)...

And we are only seeing it as it was in the past, pretty much everywhere, etc, including even as it was, or used to be, here, etc...

God Bless!

 

[Neogaia777]

It's fairly easy to figure out or guess, they no longer exist, and nothing (or rather everything) that we are seeing there no longer exists, etc, and the universe there, looks, or is now at the very same age and stage there, as it is now here, etc...

Which can then make you wonder then, if "now" is a relative term then, etc...? and I pretty much think it is, etc... which basically means that the universe is all at the same actual age and stage pretty much everywhere, etc... which is probably as it is all right now here, etc... (maybe anyway, etc)...

And we are only seeing it as it was in the past, pretty much everywhere, etc, including even as it was, or used to be, here, etc...

God Bless!

A question or thought experiment...?

What do you think you would find there if you were able to travel to it very, very quickly there from here, etc...?

Say 13bn away in the space of ten minutes... What do you think you would find or discover there, etc...?

Comments or questions, or possible answers or theories, etc...?

I think you already know what I think we would find, etc, but I would like to hear some other's possible answers, or thoughts or theories or takes on it, etc...?

God Bless!

 

[Lost4words]

Apparently the telescope just discovered a McDonalds on Saturn!!!

 

[AV1611VET]

Apparently the telescope just discovered a McDonalds on Saturn!!!

Now we know where Grimace comes from!

 

[Neogaia777]

A question or thought experiment...?

What do you think you would find there if you were able to travel to it very, very quickly there from here, etc...?

Say 13bn away in the space of ten minutes... What do you think you would find or discover there, etc...?

Comments or questions, or possible answers or theories, etc...?

I think you already know what I think we would find, etc, but I would like to hear some other's possible answers, or thoughts or theories or takes on it, etc...?

God Bless!

And if you want to further the thought experiment, what do you think we'd see if, once we got there, you turned around and looked back at earth from there, etc...?

And again, I think you already know my thoughts or answers to these kinds of questions, etc, but, what do you think, etc...?

And if you want to further the thought experiment even further, etc, what point, at either in age or stage or time, etc, do you think you'd arrive back at earth at when you traveled back there, etc...?

Please note that I did say the trip would only take ten minutes each way, etc.

And again, I think you already know my thoughts or answers to these kinds of questions, etc, but what do you think, etc...?

God Bless!

 

[rockytopva]

A spiral amongst thousands…

A Spiral Amongst Thousands

A Spiral Amongst Thousands

esawebb.org

 

[Halbhh]

A question or thought experiment...?

What do you think you would find there if you were able to travel to it very, very quickly there from here, etc...?

Say 13bn away in the space of ten minutes... What do you think you would find or discover there, etc...?

Comments or questions, or possible answers or theories, etc...?

I think you already know what I think we would find, etc, but I would like to hear some other's possible answers, or thoughts or theories or takes on it, etc...?

God Bless!

In order to answer, let me explain the significance of the idea of going somewhere faster than the speed of light. The following is to try to make it more clear the whys for my answer to your question later below. You may have heard that by the well-supported (tested and shown to reliably predict real events we can observe) physics that has stood the test of time and has evidence, we cannot travel faster than the speed of light, and nothing else can. There are speculative theories without evidence such as half-science-fiction ideas like practical travel through wormholes to a far away place in a short time, etc., but those really are speculative ideas without evidence, ok. In the world of well supported by evidence physics, no force or thing moves faster than the speed of light. And this might turn out to be even a rule that won't ever be overturned in physics (with evidence), possibly. Looks that way to me right now.

Ok, let me answer your question now. If you could today, here and now travel 13 billion light years towards some given direction in the sky in just 10 minutes, what would you see when you arrived there? You'd see that location as it is now....and it would generally look a lot like our own local universe, with stars and galaxies much like our local area....

Now, maybe you meant to ask a different question: what if we could travel back in time.... That's a very very different question. We only have what we can see in telescopes at that distance (from about 13 billion light years away), and that's not as complete of course as looking at all that is nearby, but we have now seen enough to realize that by around 800 million years old, the Universe is already starting to look similar in many ways to what we see billions of years later, sorta like an adolescent even (if I dare to characterize) -- it looks like galaxies and stars and quasars and such.

To get to something weirder looking you'd need to go back to something closer to 13.6 billion years and earlier. that would be something.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

If you could today, here and now travel 13 billion light years towards some given direction in the sky in just 10 minutes, what would you see when you arrived there? You'd see that location as it is now....and it would generally look a lot like our own local universe, with stars and galaxies much like our local area....

Now, maybe you meant to ask a different question: what if we could travel back in time.... That's a very very different question.

I don't think that's right - to travel 13 billion light years in 10 mins ship time you'd have to accelerate at 4 million g, and it would take 13 billion years Earth time - so the universe would probably look very different when you arrived, ten minutes older and very much flatter than a pancake

 

[Halbhh]

I don't think that's right - to travel 13 billion light years in 10 mins ship time you'd have to accelerate at 4 million g, and it would take 13 billion years Earth time - so the universe would probably look very different when you arrived, ten minutes older and very much flatter than a pancake

lol, of course it's not only physically impossible to travel faster than light, in my cosmology, but also we are not going to get to 99+% light speed either, lol.
So, this is strictly a fantasy/imaginative exercise about the physically impossible.

But, as a mental exercise, if one you could get from here to 13 bn ly away instantaneously, breaking the laws of physics, then what would they see?

They would see a Universe that looks much like it looks from here. A useful thing to convey to someone curious about basic stuff.

(I'm just saying highlighting a basic mainstream understanding in cosmology here about the general mostly uniformity of the Universe (even though we know there are areas that are more dense and areas that are less dense, etc., etc.) ;-) )