The Webb Telescope Captured a "Universe That Shouldn't Exist": Black Holes Are Impossibly Large, Galaxies Are Strangely Bright – Is the Big Bang Theory Wrong?

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) continues to capture an early universe that defies theoretical explanations—black holes growing too fast, ancient galaxies too bright, and hundreds of mysterious "little red dots" never seen before.

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• Black Holes of a Billion Solar Masses
• Galaxies Not Only Growing Too Fast, But Also Unreasonably Bright
• Little Red Dots: "Black Hole Stars" Wrapped in Gas?
• Evidence Contradicts Itself, Leaving Too Many Theories to Choose From

Over the past few years, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has consistently challenged the most basic assumptions of astrophysics: the early universe it sees is completely at odds with existing theories. Black holes that had already grown to a billion solar masses within less than a billion years after the Big Bang, ancient galaxies far brighter than simulation predictions, and hundreds of mysterious celestial objects "little red dots" that had never been observed before JWST's launch in 2022.

According to a report by Quanta Magazine interviewing multiple astrophysicists, this confusion is now spawning a wave of new theories attempting to explain the "impossible universe" revealed by the James Webb Space Telescope. The three puzzles are interconnected, and no one can yet say which explanation will be the final answer.

Black Holes of a Billion Solar Masses

Princeton astrophysicist Jenny Greene told Quanta Magazine that the universe was originally smooth and featureless after the Big Bang, yet within just a few hundred million years, "we are already seeing black holes of a billion solar masses growing." The size of a black hole depends on how big its seed is and how fast it grows; but the collapse of the first stars could at most leave behind seeds of about 100 solar masses. To grow to a billion solar masses in the early universe, "you have to force-feed them."

In the past, it was believed that black hole growth had a hard upper limit (the Eddington limit), but recent simulations show that if the accretion disk expands in a specific way, gas can overcome radiation pressure, resulting in "super-Eddington accretion." In 2024, JWST observed a black hole about 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang that was devouring matter at roughly 40 times the Eddington limit.

Another theory argues that the largest black holes were never born from stars at all, but instead directly collapsed from massive gas clouds into seeds of about 10k solar masses. Greene said: "You can produce direct collapse black holes in a computer, but you can't produce enough of them to explain all the black holes."

A recent study added new evidence for direct collapse: a little red dot about 750 million years after the Big Bang, magnified by gravitational lensing, was identified as a "naked" supermassive black hole estimated at 50 million solar masses, with no identifiable stars around it, suggesting it might have been born as a giant seed before any galaxy existed.

Jenny Greene stated: "There is clearly a difference in how black holes grow that we do not yet understand."

Galaxies Not Only Growing Too Fast, But Also Unreasonably Bright

Before the black hole puzzle was solved, many early galaxies discovered by JWST were also "too bright." Flatiron Institute scientist Rachel Somerville presented the latest simulations at a conference in Helsingør, Denmark, in April this year: "Not much happens before redshift 15 (270 million years), but by redshift 9 (550 million years) we have built a beautiful galaxy." However, the oldest galaxy found by JWST existed only about 280 million years after the Big Bang, far earlier than the simulation timeline.

Theorists have proposed multiple explanations: early galaxies might have been more efficient at converting gas into stars, star formation might have occurred in intermittent bursts, and the early environment might have favored extremely high-luminosity stars. Somerville smiled wryly and said: "We've gone from having too few explanations for early galaxies to having too many theories to explain them."

The MIRI instrument further revealed that early galaxies have vastly different properties. Hakim Atek of Sorbonne University told Quanta Magazine: "Some galaxies appear to have cleared all gas and dust, showing only naked stars; another is piled high with large amounts of gas."

This suggests that star formation might have been a cycle of successive bursts, and another group of galaxies with abnormally high nitrogen content hints at the existence of many particularly massive stars in the early universe.

Little Red Dots: "Black Hole Stars" Wrapped in Gas?

Among them, the little red dots may be the most bizarre puzzle.

Charlotte Mason, an astrophysicist at the Cosmic Dawn Center in Copenhagen, usually uses doodles to understand cosmic mysteries. Her notebook has recently been filled with little red dots. These objects began appearing in large numbers about 650 million years after the Big Bang and had never been observed before.

The latest idea is that little red dots might be black holes wrapped in thick gas, representing a new type of celestial object—"black hole stars," where the dense gas shell shines like a stellar atmosphere. Mason analyzed the spectrum of one little red dot; theoretically, a dense gas cloud should cause specific changes in some light, but she didn't see any.

She candidly told Quanta Magazine: "So what now? Start over. If I make the gas clumpy and carve holes around the black hole, I should get a signal closer to what we observe."

Evidence Contradicts Itself, Leaving Too Many Theories to Choose From

When the three puzzles come together, the evidence actually conflicts. The black hole from 2024 that was devouring matter at 40 times the Eddington limit supports the "small seed + super-Eddington accretion" scenario. But the "naked" black hole of 50 million solar masses instead supports the "large seed + direct collapse" scenario.

On the galaxy side, the diversity seen by MIRI also indicates that no single narrative can apply to all early galaxies. Perhaps Greene's statement is the most fitting: differences clearly exist, rather than a single standard answer.

The good news is that tools are improving. Somerville said numerical simulations are "making very significant progress," better able to inform the interpretation of the high-redshift universe. Atek mentioned that by matching observed galaxies with the best simulation analogs, the entire star formation history can be reconstructed.

Looking further ahead, the radiation from galaxies and black holes ionized the ocean of neutral hydrogen, marking the end of the cosmic dark ages. The first stars rapidly burned through their fuel and exploded as supernovae, seeding the new elements of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and iron—the raw materials for planets and life. Lise Christensen, an astrophysicist at the Cosmic Dawn Center, put it bluntly: "We are looking back at what created us." This may be the first time humanity has the chance to see with its own eyes where we came from.