Astronomers Confirm Redshift of Distant Galaxy seen by JWST

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That was indeed the prediction (which you highlighted yourself below) in the part of your comments that I was actually referring to.

Of course there are other predictions you mentioned, but that statment you quoted above was specifically about this:

Next:

Stopped clock moment. Although not really analogous, since a stopped clock is only right twice per day out of many different outcomes (large degrees of freedom). Regarding the prediction about the distance of galaxies there are three possibilities:

  1. The most distant galaxies detectable are exactly at the distance expected.
  2. The most distant galaxies detectable are further away than expected.
  3. The most distant galaxies detectable are closer than expected.

Although 3 was pretty much ruled out by known galaxies that set a minimum distance. So, the most distant galaxies detectable by JWST could either be (A) at about the same distance as the most distant galaxies that were previously known/expected or (B) at a further distance as the most distant galaxies previously known/expected.

That’s pretty much only two degrees of freedom; a coin toss. And when you spend most of your time being contrarian against the scientists (they expect heads, so I expect tails) then you will happen to be right sometimes, especially if it’s regarding an issue that admittedly wasn’t well understood by the scientists.

So “predicting” the discovery of galaxies more distant than previously expected and detected isn’t remarkable. You have to do far more than that (see the response following the next quote)

Not just that. You have to (1) predict the same observations with (at least) the same level of accuracy as the theory you intend to replace; and (2, that you already said here) make viable predictions that are distinct from the theory you intend to replace.

You may think you have gotten step 2 (predicting galaxies at greater distances than expected) you have to give a more precise prediction about that. About what distance does the steady state theory predict the furthest detectable galaxies to be and for what reasons? What is the nature of these galaxies? Do they form large scale structures (clusters and super clusters)? Their metallicity? Population I, II or III stars? These details have to be direct consequence the model you are proposing, NOT simply because it stands contrary to the current model (which - regarding galaxy formation - isn’t the even the hot big bang theory as explained previously). And they also should be testable, not unfalsifiable ad hoc rationalization such as “God could create mature stars at any point, so seeing them that far out means he created those just like as we see them”

Furthermore, step 1 is far worse. There are plenty of observations that are accounted for by the ‘hot big bang’ model that a steady state theory simply doesn’t, or for all intends and purposes just flat out can’t. To name a few examples:

  • An expanding universe: as shown by the red shift of distant galaxies.
  • The CMB radiation.

That latter in particular is very problematic for a steady state universe, since that is the very afterglow of when the universe was hot and dense enough to be filled with plasma. You may suggest that you could come up with an explanation for this (just like Neptune could account for the discrepancies in the orbit of Uranus), but this is very different. Suggesting the CMB isn’t the product of a hot and dense universe is just like walking up to an object with a black-body radiation of high intensity (i.e it’s glowing red) and suggesting that it’s not truly hot. And there are other details about a steady state universe that Lisle wants to propose in order to account for other things like the speed of light that would break all modern physics. So not only do you need to propose a model that can do the job better than galaxy formation and hot big bang, you would have to replace all of modern physics before you even can make your case.

It’s okay to dream up new ideas, but it’s different to actually come up with a model that can ground predictions in greater detail.

From what I can tell is that disk galaxies tend to be younger (having more giant blue stars, while elliptical galaxies have more old red stars). So perhaps more distant spiral galaxies isn’t surprising. And again, this doesn’t make it distinct from the big bang model. I think for a steady state universe, the large structure of the distant (and older) universe should be similar with the current universe in most details (not just a few).

This seems backwards. Shouldn’t the local universe be (at large scales) similar to the distant universe under a steady state? Also, what has the specific properties of the Milky Way way to do with this? Also, one in a million, or more specifically one per 160–200 Mpc^3 is indeed small per volume wise. However, simulation they used is 14,100,000 Mpc^3, which would contain 70,500 to 88,125 of such galaxies. And the observable universe is about 12,100,000,000,000 Mpc^3, which would thus contain 60.500.000.000 to 75.625.000.000 of these galaxies. Far from “unique”.

Again… backwards. How do you expect this from a “steady state” universe? A universe that started out being very dense and hot (so hot for matter to be in the quark-gluon plasma phase) sounds more like the hot big bang.

Side note, I guess you are referring to the unification of the fundamental forces, but it’s not that only the strong force existed. They were all combined into the GUT force (except for gravity).

That wouldn’t explain the CMB at all whatsoever. The CMB doesn’t come from the formation of stars and galaxies. It would be explained when the hot dense universe filled with quark gluon plasma slowly cooled over time to become neutral, but - again - that’s the hot big bang model.

Entanglement doesn’t work like that (it’s not instant travel). And the very opposite is actually the case. The speed of light itself is an intrinsic property of spacetime itself, not just for photons. This is one of those thing where you have to propose something that replaces all of modern physics. Not just the big bang.

It makes no scientific sense whatsoever. This has already been pointed out to you before. God is reportedly all-powerful, so it cannot ground any counter factuals. There is no scenario where one can say “God can do x so we expect to see x, but not y so we shouldn’t expect to see y”. No predictions can be made from this.

Well it depends on how you define the start of that epoch. Like you could define it’s start at the exact moment when the first star started fusion, but the universe would’ve been mostly neutral for a very long time until a sufficient number of stars and galaxies came around. I guess that’s how the picture defined that epoch (since the picture itself showed stars appearing prior). Not that this semantic detail makes a difference.

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A prudent stance, Valerie. There has been some recent activity on the pop III front, by this preprint:

A strong He ii λ1640 emitter with extremely blue UV spectral slope at z = 8.16: presence of Pop III stars?

which is covered by Anton in this YouTube

Did James Webb Finally Find The Elusive Population III Stars? Maybe…

Or maybe not. Or very probably not.

Ethan Siegel responds here

The sober truth about finding the Universe’s first stars

and I find his discussion pretty grounded, and provides some good insight as to why a primordial universe of almost exclusively H and He should not lead to the expectation that early epoch galaxies would be devoid of metallicity. There are reasons to expect that the earliest stars to form under primordial conditions would typically be massive, possibly of a hundred sol or greater. Such heavy stars, then and now, have lifespans of from tens to a couple hundred of thousands of years before their violent ends. A forming galaxy would be tainted with heavy elements before the bulk of its stars even got started. It is demanding enough to find early galaxies, and beyond our present reach to find the first individual stars of those galaxies.

In any event, Lisle’s prediction here was probably safe as it was widely shared by big bang theorists, although there is a great deal of interest in a confirmed discovery of pop III stars.

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Please direct me to the source of these assumptions. I’ve read all the articles I could as they’ve come out. I haven’t heard anyone say something other than their favored explanation isn’t correct. What other models did “various camps” have, and did these results fit any of them?

I have been thinking - color me not surprised that you won’t accept creationist predictions. To be clear, Lisle didn’t write that it would be the number of galaxies in the very distant “early” universe that would cause astronomers to conclude that galaxy formation happened earlier, but that it was because they would be “fully formed,” i.e. no galaxy evolution. As far as I’ve read, expectations were that big stars formed some kind of dwarf galaxies.

So, should we wait two years (?) for astronomers to complete surveys to not to find pop III stars, and “early” dwarf galaxies in the early universe, and not find evidence of later galaxy formation in z=3-9 to consider the prediction actually fulfilled? I have patience - let me know how long you think it should take to find evidence of it. To be cleaned I’m specifically predicting there will be no pattern that scientists could make any sense of galaxy formation by two years from now. Sure they’re already pointing to things that might - low metallicity galaxies, and “green pea” galaxies…but I’m predicting they can’t find connect dots to show how galaxy formation works any better than they are today. Because a YEC prediction is that the universe is young and there is no galaxy evolution.

The prediction is that there is no galaxy evolution. He just didn’t specifically guess in the very first images released, astronomers would be blown away by the number of early galaxies. And that that was the clincher that overturned expectations and favored explanations immediately. But like I said, we can wait two years or more for the surveys to be done to reconsider this prediction. I’ll come back and tag you, God willing I’m still here on earth. :slightly_smiling_face:

(Lisle’s audience is mostly creationists who aren’t scientists, so he wasn’t very specific, but perhaps he should begin writing some blogs for the non-creationist scientists too. :slightly_smiling_face:)

So, is creationists having a better guess following a trend or just being contrarion? Or maybe it’s following a trend while being willing to be contrarion? Hint: it’s the latter. Perhaps @Rumraket will find a model where the data we have now fits other models because other astronomers were thinking the same - following trends while taking a risk.

To be clear, I think astronomers will be forced to reconsider some kind of a steady state model.

On the other hand, I’m suggesting creationism could look like a hot, dense universe, then expansion, with no detectable pattern of galaxy formation. If that’s what the data shows, I’m not sure scientists will accept that. Perhaps some will believe a steady state better fits the observable data. Textbooks might just present both steady state and big bang (with unknowns about galaxy formation) options eventually.

Again, sorry to be confusing by mentioning “steady state” and explaining my ideas of a creation model in the same post. But I AM saying the CMB IS likely the product of a hot and dense universe in my model. I’m saying it is because all of the matter in the universe God created could have been isotropic (except earth - and that’s miniscule, so doesn’t matter) for a few days until outer space was stretched and then shaped into what it looks like today. I explained earlier the reasons why I think it is a good biblical interpretation that fits the science as far as I understand it.

Yeah, I didn’t say it was instant travel. My thought was that if one photon over there can immediately affect the state of one photon over here, the light that we see could take on the properties of the light coming from the objects we’re looking at.

Not true, the biblical God is constrained by His nature and the text itself. So lots of counter-factuals can be made. Any cosmology predictions still have to fit within good exegesis if Genesis 1 and any passage with any relevance to cosmology and creation. I think accepting the state of current science is terrible exegesis so I don’t accept it as truth.

Related to all this, came across this today:

The fact that the HERA team has not yet detected these bubbles of ionized hydrogen within the cold hydrogen of the cosmic dark age rules out some theories of how stars evolved in the early universe.

Specifically, the data show that the earliest stars, which may have formed around 200 million years after the Big Bang, contained few other elements than hydrogen and helium. This is different from the composition of today’s stars, which have a variety of so-called metals, the astronomical term for elements, ranging from lithium to uranium, that are heavier than helium. The finding is consistent with the current model for how stars and stellar explosions produced most of the other elements.

These constraints look to be problematic if JWST doesn’t find low metallicity.

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As I discussed above, it can be misleading to conceive of galactic evolution as some striving to be fully-formed. The universe is dynamic and interacting, and there are galaxies, galactic clusters, cosmological filaments and voids, all with their own history resulting in their presentation. To say there is no galaxy evolution suggests that the universe is static, but that, most definitely, is not what we see. One example are jellyfish galaxies, which are stripped of gas by ram-pressure as they interact in clusters. ESO 137-001 is an exhibit. It was this galaxy that David MacMillan could not fit into a YEC framework:

ESO 137–001 is a barred spiral galaxy, not unlike our own, 2.1 quintillion kilometers away. It’s plunging into the center of the Norma Galaxy Cluster at 20,000 times the speed of sound. Inside tight clusters of galaxies, like Norma, the intergalactic medium contains concentrated hydrogen gas much thicker than average. The impact of ESO 137–001’s spiral arms into this gigantic gas cloud is tearing them away in pieces like a dandelion in a hurricane. Clouds of dust and hot gas trail behind in brilliant blue and brown streaks.

The question, for me, was obvious. How long had this been happening? This image, of course, is coming from 220 million light-years away and thus dates to the earliest dinosaurs…but even if we handwave the starlight problem and pretend the light is reaching us in real time, it is still a challenge. This is real motion and change taking place on an intergalactic scale. If the universe is only 6,000 years old, how far could this galaxy have traveled?

There is much that is yet to be learned about the early universe, but galactic interactions are comparatively established, and as a lay person, your own eyes are a decent guide. Whatever your cosmology, it must account for such processes which would have taken place over hundreds of millions of years.

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Nowhere did I suggest that. Should I use galaxy formation instead? I think I was pretty clear I was talking about the earlier universe.

My response is basically “meh.” The galaxy is super beautiful and amazing, but regarding the science the article explains they don’t know exactly how the gas was stripped and how young stars could be in the tail because it seems to contract each other. But definitely please let me know if you see any articles or papers on it once Webb observes it.

Well, whatever your cosmology, it must account for why historically-observed processes don’t match the processes astronomers assume happened over hundreds of millions of years. :wink:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00202-1

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You should read the primary literature instead of pop-sci articles.

It’s long and begins with a history of the field, but it covers basically all the different assumptions and parameters used in various models of early galaxy formation following the big bang, and it is very clear and open that all the models have assumptions, some of which are unknown, so a sort of guess must be made that has to be observationally constrained(models must reproduce what we see). Now it should be rather obvious that if we only saw a particular thing with earlier telescopes, the models would be adjusted to reproduce what earlier telescopes saw. With newer telescopes and better computers, models are again adjusted to better produce what we see.

4. Basic physics of galaxy formation
We are now ideally placed to discuss the key physical processes (including gas cooling, star
formation, radiation fields and SN feedback) involved in galaxy formation (Sec. 4.1). We then
discuss the key theoretical approaches used to model early galaxies (Sec. 4.2) before ending by detailing the key physics implemented in a number of (semi-analytic and numerical) models, over a range of physical scales, in Table 1.

4.1. Physical ingredients
Although the physics of gravitational instability, connecting the primordial density fluctuation
field to nonlinear dark matter structures, offers a solid starting point for galaxy formation theories, the most difficult challenge is to obtain a sound description of the fate of baryons. This is a particularly important point as most of the information obtained from observations is carried by electromagnetic signals from this component. It is therefore critical that any valuable model predicts both the global (such as luminosity functions, star formation rates, stellar and gas masses) and structural (sizes, morphology, accretion, outflows, thermal state of the ISM, turbulence) properties of galaxies. These predictions are far from trivial as they involve a large number of microphysical and hydrodynamical processes interacting on a multi-scale level in a complex feedback network. However, because some of the key processes cannot be described purely from a fundamental physics perspective (a classical example is the way in which star formation is implemented in any type of model), one is forced to take a more heuristic approach in which theory must include some Ansatz based on empirical evidence. For this reason, the output of any model must be carefully confronted against observations to test whether the assumptions made hold against a wider application range. In the following we try to succinctly describe the key relevant processes for the formation of a galaxy. As it will become clear in the following Sections, though, details of their specific implementation might noticeably change the conclusions reached by different studies. With these caveats, that will be better elucidated later on, we proceed with a first reconnaissance of the key processes involved in galaxy formation.

This idea that Lisle is trying to concoct, that astronomers predicted there should be no galaxies detected at redshifts of 15 or more, just isn’t a reality.

It was that too, but he also claims that astronomers were expecting none. No galaxies at these redshifts.

Here’s Lisle’s predictions which you quoted in the op:

So this is Jason Lisle saying (1) “secularists” were not expecting any galaxies at these redshifts, because according to Jason Lisle their models had predicted none.

As for Lisle’s (2) prediction I have already explained why that is meaningless blather because galaxies can’t fail to be “fully formed”. Lisle’s prediction here is just to vague to be meaningful. He explains no relationship that couples actual measurable values to redshifts.

Galaxies have sizes (volume, radius), shapes, and masses, and they have redshifts. So the question is how the distribution of radii, shape, and mass parameters of the most distant galaxies detected, compare with the distributions predicted by different models. I don’t know. Jason doesn’t say and cites no literature. Impossible to test a “prediction” that follows from no model of his, that has no values, and exists in verbal form only.

If this is supposed to be testable predictions I think you should spend some time at least trying to better articulate exactly what those predictions are.
I don’t know what
“there will be no pattern that scientists could make any sense of galaxy formation by two years from now”,
or
“I’m predicting they can’t find connect dots to show how galaxy formation works any better than they are today”
means. I think that attempt at a sentence could benefit from a re-write.

Also, galaxy formation is actually decently well modeled and simulated in recent years as you can learn from the above article. Again, the values that feed into the model are subject to large uncertainties, but depending on what values you use those models really do reproduce galaxies with the properties of the ones we observe.

First of all it is not even a prediction of YEC that there is no galaxy evolution. There is no sentence in the Bible that asserts galaxies don’t evolve over time. Second is that the reality of galaxy evolution is already comprehensively established. Galaxy properties change as a function of distance, both in terms of morphology, mass, dust content, metallicity, and size distributions.

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An even better picture can be found here:

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And whatever your cosmology, it must not exaggerate the extent or significance of any apparent discrepancies between historically-observed processes and the processes that astronomers know for a fact to have happened over hundreds of millions of years.

The article to which you have linked only talks about one single supernova that behaved in a different way from almost every other supernova ever observed. It says nothing whatsoever about the age of anything, other than that the supernova in question was observed to explode in 1181.

This unusual supernova may have an explanation grounded in known laws of physics, or it may indicate something new and unexpected going on. But you have to rule out the former before considering the latter. And even if it does point to new laws of physics, these will only be at the level of fine details. To challenge facts as fundamental and as well established as the 13.8 billion year age of the cosmos, you would need to present evidence that falsifies the core fundamentals, right down to the basic principles of how measurement itself works. It’s going to take far, far more than just a handful of anomalous observations and one-off discrepancies here and there to do that.

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I read/skimmed it. I can’t find it now, but I was reading a paper by Yan where he was proposing a new idea of galaxy formation based on dark matter IIRC. So not sure any of those will be upheld - that was my point.

I’m not sure where you’re getting this. He’s speaking colloquially and as you mentioned didn’t have specific scientific definitions.

Explain the basics of JWST results so far to anyone on the street and ask if Lisle was right; they’d say yes. We can agree scientists would want more details.

Ok. So I’ll just say the opposite of what Kartaltepe said and give a time frame:

The next two years of JWST surveys will not enable astronomers to quantify when the first disks and spheroids in galaxies formed and will not answer questions about when structures like spiral arms or bulges first formed.

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