James Webb may have found the first stars with the presence of dark matter in the Universe

The universe is full of information and phenomena that we are still unable to understand, explain or even detect. However, the development of increasingly advanced technologies has made it possible to create satellites and telescopes with surprising data collection and analysis capabilities, such as the current James Webb.

With each new announcement involving the space telescope, scientists around the world are impressed and intrigued by the discoveries.

Therefore, the scientific community was excited about the possibility that the James Webb Telescope had found evidence of the first dark stars ever seen in the Universe. These would be the oldest stars ever observed, something that, until then, was only a theoretical concept.

James Webb may have confirmed the existence of dark stars

Photo: Super Interesting/Reproduction

James Webb was launched in 2021, with the aim of collecting information about the first bodies formed in the early Universe, shortly after the Big Bang.

Late last year, the telescope collected images of what could be the first galaxies to form. However, some researchers believe that the bodies found are giant black stars.

It is worth noting that these stars, although they are called that, are not exactly black. In reality, they can be a billion times brighter than the Sun, as well as millions of times larger in mass and diameter. It was precisely this high level of luminosity that allowed the capture of something so distant and ancient in the Universe.

According to research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciencesled by scientists at the University of Texas at Austin and Colgate University, these stars are powered by processes involving dark matter.

To give you an idea, the size of the objects is so large that their measurement is about ten astronomical units (10 au), that is, ten times the distance between the Earth and the Sun. This means that, if they were in the In place of the Sun, all the planets up to Saturn’s orbit would be swallowed by its grandeur.

Difference between common and black stars

Commonly seen stars, like the Sun and all others visible to the naked eye, are formed from the gravitational force exerted on a large cloud of cosmic dust.

In turn, this dust clumps together to the point of pressing the atoms until nuclear fusion, forming new particles in a process that generates an enormous amount of light, heat and radiation.

On the other hand, dark stars also have the property of being formed by dark matter, albeit in small quantities. This matter does not interact with electromagnetic waves and annihilates when it collides with baryonic matter (the common matter that makes up everything we see).

However, its presence is perceived by the gravitational influence on the Universe, constituting around 85% of all existing matter, without the possibility of visual detection.

The scientists involved in the study have been searching for evidence of their dark star theories for more than 15 years without success. However, that is not a long time, considering that Albert Einstein’s theories were only recently proven.

What is the scientists’ explanation?

The idea for the explanation arose after identifying the brightness of three very old galaxies in the Universe, formed approximately 330 million, 370 million and 400 million years after the Big Bang. This last event occurred 13.8 billion years ago and gave rise to everything we know.

Photo: Red dots referring to possible dark stars (NASA/ESA/Reproduction)

However, these formations would be strange given their development, so some physicists have proposed this explanation. Regarding the stars, Katherine Freese, senior author of the study and an astrophysicist at the University of Texas, explains:

“They are made of atomic matter and powered by a small amount of dark matter that is found inside them. A supermassive dark star is as bright as an entire galaxy, so it could be one or the other.”

The data recovered so far is not sufficient to confirm this hypothesis. However, James Webb can still provide conclusive evidence for some explanation, considering that the extreme conditions of the young Universe allow such formations.

Furthermore, the energy released by the annihilation of antiparticles, that is, dark matter, is capable of reaching an impressive 10 thousand degrees Celsius, a temperature higher than the average of the solar surface.

Even so, the fact is that the detection of bodies by the telescope represents a significant advance in human knowledge. Furthermore, as Freese mentions, it may reveal the first information about dark particles present in the cosmic immensity in which we live.