The first generation of stars in the Universe is yet to be observed. There are two leading theories for those objects: hydrogen burning Population III stars and the so-called ‘dark stars,’ made of hydrogen and helium but powered by dark matter heating rather than by nuclear fusion. New research shows that JADES-GS-z13-0, JADES-GS-z12-0, and JADES-GS-z11-0 — three high-redshift galaxy candidates detected by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope — are consistent with a supermassive dark star interpretation, thus identifying the first dark star candidates.
Dark matter is the mysterious substance that makes up about 25% of the Universe.
There is strong indirect evidence for its existence from measurements of cosmic primordial radiation, anomalies in the radial dependence of galactic rotational curves and gravitational lensing.
Despite its apparently pivotal role in the Universe the physical origin of dark matter remains unknown.
Theoretical physicists suspect that it is made of unseen particles that neither reflect nor absorb light, but are able to exert gravity.
Experiments around the world are attempting to detect and study such particles. Among the leading candidates are WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles).
When they collide, these particles annihilate themselves, depositing heat into collapsing clouds of hydrogen and converting them into brightly shining dark stars.
The identification of supermassive dark stars would open up the possibility of learning about the dark matter based on their observed properties.
Follow-up observations from Webb of the objects’ spectroscopic properties could help confirm whether these candidate objects are indeed dark stars.
Confirming the existence of dark stars might also help solve a problem created by Webb: there seem to be too many large galaxies in the early Universe to fit the predictions of the Standard Model of cosmology.
“It’s more likely that something within the Standard Model needs…
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