New research from Case Western Reserve University is challenging the long-held theory of dark matter in galaxy formation. According to a study published in The Astrophysical Journal, data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) suggests that small, primitive galaxies may not have been aided by invisible dark matter in their early stages.
Instead, the oldest galaxies are large and bright, contradicting the popular hypothesis that dark matter helped them clump together. The research proposes an alternative theory of gravity, known as Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND), which predicts that structure formation in the early universe would have happened much faster than previously thought.
Lead author Stacy McGaugh said that the study’s findings support his earlier work on MOND, which he first proposed in 1998. According to McGaugh, MOND predicted that galaxies assembled rapidly and initially expanded outward with the rest of the universe, eventually collapsing under their own gravity to form a galaxy.
The researchers’ results have significant implications for our understanding of the early universe and the formation of large structures within it. While more work is needed to reconcile MOND with General Relativity, McGaugh’s team has made a compelling case for an alternative theory that could explain the observed behavior of galaxies in the distant past.
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Source: https://phys.org/news/2024-11-dark-theory-galaxy-formation.html