Although dark matter dominates gravity, the contribution of ordinary matter can no longer be neglected in cosmological simulations, as it significantly affects how cosmic matter is distributed

It should take many billions of years to create a galaxy like the Milky Way with 100 billion stars, but JWST has found primordial galaxies that are larger and more massive than the Milky Way existing only half a billion years after the Big Bang

The ancient galaxy GZ9 P3 has two bright patches revealing two dense nuclei, pointing to a galactic merger where two primordial galaxies smashed together in the infant Universe

Galactic mergers may have dominated the universe immediately after the Big Bang, implying that rapid growth through merger activity could explain the early appearance of massive galaxies

Different methods of measuring the age of the universe have started giving different results, and cosmologists have no idea why this discrepancy exists

S8 is a measure of the lumpiness or clustering of matter in the universe, describing how matter is distributed and how it clumps together throughout space

Current cosmological observations and theories are not completely adding up, suggesting that something fundamental in our understanding of the universe is missing or incorrect

FLAMINGO is a large-scale hydrodynamic cosmological simulation that models both dark matter and ordinary baryonic matter, unlike previous simulations that focused only on dark matter

The FLAMINGO simulation failed to resolve the S8 tension, suggesting that something may be terribly wrong with the cherished standard model of cosmology

The James Webb Space Telescope has identified six galaxies that exist half a billion years after the Big Bang that are up to 10 times bigger than the Milky Way galaxy, which should not be possible according to current galaxy formation theories

JWST observations of primordial galaxies suggest that stars within these galaxies must have formed more rapidly and effectively than previously believed in order for the galaxies to attain their observed massive sizes

JWST observations of GZ9 P3 identified specific elements like silicon, carbon, and iron in the older stars, and found that there were more old stars than expected, suggesting that galaxies may have become chemically mature quicker than previously thought

Iron is the heaviest element that stars can produce through nucleosynthesis, and when stars explode, they spread these metals into space, enriching the early universe with elements that later became part of new stars

The cosmic microwave background, which is the light left over from when the universe was only 380,000 years old, can be used to calculate the expansion rate of the universe

The unexpectedly mature older population of stars in GZ9 P3 challenges current understanding and suggests that stars formed much earlier in the universe than previously thought to have aged sufficiently by the observed cosmic time

Our current cosmological framework may not be incorrect, but our perception of the rapidity of galaxy formation likely needs adjustment given that galaxies are more massive than previously deemed feasible

The FLAMINGO simulation successfully matched the formation of the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxy, demonstrating progress in cosmological modeling, but fell short of explaining the observed weak clumping of matter in the present-day universe

Distant supernovas of known brightness can be used as standard candles to estimate the expansion rate of the universe at the time they were observed by comparing their calculated brightness to their apparent brightness

The Hubble constant is the name for the expansion rate of the universe, and the Hubble tension is the significant difference between results obtained from CMB-based measurements and supernova standard candle measurements of this constant

Cosmological observations disagree on how matter is distributed in the present-day universe, giving rise to the S8 tension, a new cosmological crisis