A recent study published in the preprint server arXiv suggests that space itself may have created galaxies through gravitational waves sloshing around in the infant universe. According to cosmologists, the early universe underwent a period of rapid expansion known as inflation, which expanded the universe by a factor of at least 1060 in less than a second.
Inflation is believed to have powered an event where quantum foam, the subatomic fluctuations in spacetime, was expanded along with everything else. This led to the formation of the first stars and galaxies over hundreds of millions of years. However, scientists still struggle to understand what drove this inflationary period and what ultimately powered it.
To address these mysteries, researchers have proposed a new model where gravitational waves play a key role in galaxy formation. In this scenario, gravitational waves amplify each other in the expanding universe, creating imprints that are consistent with observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation.
This new theory has several differences from traditional inflation, but further investigation is needed to explore its observational consequences and determine if it’s worth investigating further.
Source: https://phys.org/news/2025-01-space-galaxies.html