NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is helping scientists make discoveries that could alter theories about the universe’s origins.
Scientists at the University of Missouri “looked deep into the universe and found something unexpected,” the university revealed in an August 2025 statement. “Using infrared images taken from NASA’s powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), they identified 300 objects that were brighter than they should be.”
Those objects may be “some of the earliest galaxies ever formed,” Science Daily reported.
According to Science Daily, the findings “could force scientists to rethink how galaxies emerged after the Big Bang.”
The Researchers Believe the ‘Mysterious Objects’ Might Be ‘Very Early Galaxies’
The researchers believe that at least some of the objects may be “very early galaxies,” which could change how scientists look at the formation of the universe.
“These mysterious objects are candidate galaxies in the early universe, meaning they could be very early galaxies,” said Haojing Yan, an astronomy professor at the University of Missouri and study co-author, according to the university.
Researchers using the James Webb Space Telescope have discovered 300 unusually bright objects in the early universe. While these objects could be galaxies, their brightness is unexpected, leading to uncertainty about their true nature according to the University of Missouri ✨️ pic.twitter.com/U88phGty9D
— Space Advances (@SpaceAdvances) August 19, 2025
“If even a few of these objects turn out to be what we think they are, our discovery could challenge current ideas about how galaxies formed in the early universe — the period when the first stars and galaxies began to take shape.”
The Discoveries Required ‘Cosmic Detective Work’ by Experts
The findings required “cosmic detective work,” the university wrote.
“As the light from these early galaxies travels through space, it stretches into longer wavelengths — shifting from visible light into infrared,” Yan said, according to the university. “This stretching is called redshift, and it helps us figure out how far away these galaxies are. The higher the redshift, the farther away the galaxy is from us on Earth, and the closer it is to the beginning of the universe.”
The university noted that other scientists have argued that the objects are not early galaxies, but the new research argues that the findings should be reconsidered.
The findings were published in a June edition of the Astrophysical Journal. The research article is called, “On the Very Bright Dropouts Selected Using the James Webb Space Telescope NIRCam Instrument.”
In the article, the scientists write that the objects may be “the most extraordinary galaxies in the early universe.”
