An early hint of cosmic dawn has been seen in a distant galaxy

 

Image courtesy of SA/Webb, NASA & CSA, JADES Collaboration, J. Witstok, P. Jakobsen, M. Zamani

Joel Kontinen

How can galaxies form? A study has them forming some 239 million years ago after the Big Bang.

A galaxy found at the dawn of the universe appears to be the earliest known evidence of cosmic reionisation, the period when the universe was lit up for the first time.

Following the big bang, the early universe was filled with hot hydrogen and helium gas that scattered photons, making the cosmos somewhat opaque. Over the next few hundred million years, as stars began to shine, their light ionised the hydrogen and helium, enabling photons to flow freely and making the universe transparent, though the exact timing of this is uncertain.

Joris Witstok at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and his colleagues used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to study a galaxy called JADES-GS-z13-1-LA. The galaxy is seen 330 million years after the big bang, making it one of the earliest known galaxies in the universe.

Ultraviolet light from the galaxy suggests it was surrounded by a bubble about 200,000 light years across, which might be the result of its starlight interacting with the surrounding cosmic hydrogen. Seeing evidence for this so early in the universe is “beyond even our wildest expectations,” says Witstok.

Michele Trenti at the University of Melbourne agrees that the observations are consistent with the process of cosmic reionisation. “It’s both surprising and exciting,” says Trenti. “I would not expect the ultraviolet light emitted from this galaxy to reach JWST. The cold neutral hydrogen gas that we were expecting would have surrounded the galaxy should have blocked the photons. We are witnessing the onset of reionisation.”

The nature of the small galaxy itself is not entirely clear; it might be shining brightly because of a population of massive hot and young stars, or a powerful central black hole. “This would be the earliest known evidence for a supermassive black hole at the centre of a galaxy,” says Trenti.

While astronomers have seen other, later galaxies with a similar bubble around them, JADES-GS-z13-1-LA is the earliest known example. “It’s a benchmark,” says Richard Ellis at University College London. “It tells us that this galaxy must have been around for quite a while, and pushes that little bit further back to the beginning of when galaxies first emerged from darkness.”

JWST was able to unearth the secrets of this galaxy only by staring at it for a relatively long time, about 19 hours. Witstok is hopeful we might soon see other early evidence for cosmic reionisation. “We have a few more candidates,” he says. “We might find it even further [back in time], or maybe this is the most extreme that it gets.”

The millions of years in this study are not based on science but on  evolutionary thinking,

Source:

Jonathan O’Callaghan 2025 An early hint of cosmic dawn has been seen in a distant galaxy | New Scientist 26 March 

Why do giraffes have spots? Not for the reason you might think

 Image courtesy of Monica Bond

Joel Kontinen

Why do giraffes have spots? It may have to do with intelligent design bringing them.

“The beautiful “mottled patterns of a giraffe’s coat work as more than camouflage – the size of the spots seems to be linked to how well the animals survive during unusual temperatures.

Every giraffe has a unique array of spots. Patterns with larger and rounder spots can increase the chance of a baby giraffe surviving its first four months, because they help them blend into the background in the dappled light near bushes. But spots are are darker than the rest of the fur, it is also thought they help them to survive. “

 Just like in the case of the zebra, intelligence design helps them to succeed.

Source:

 Chris Simms 2025 Why do giraffes have spots? Not for the reason you might think | New Scientist March 

Sharks aren’t silent after all

 Image courtesy of Paul Caiger

Joel Kontinen

Can sharks be talkative? They were thought to be quiet, but new research shows they are not.  

”At least one shark species has a bark to go along with its bite. It can make clicking noises, scientists report, a first among an animal group once thought to be totally silent.

During her doctoral research at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, Carolin Nieder, now at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, was studying sharks’ hearing. When handling the sharks during experiments, she noticed one species – a houndshark called the rig (Mustelus lenticulatus) – appeared to make metallic clicking sounds.”

Yes. even animals know how to tell stories to their kin.

“I was just kind of ignoring it because sharks are not supposed to make sounds,” says Nieder. “And it just kept happening.”

Source:

Jake Buehler 2025 Sharks aren’t silent after all | New Scientist 25 March

Budgie brains have a map of vocal sounds just like humans

 

Image courtesy of BROKER.com / Alamy

Joel Kontinen

Recordings of brain activity in budgerigars reveal sets of brain cells that represent different sounds like keys on a keyboard – a structure never seen before in any bird brain

According to evolutionists, some birds have vocal sounds just like humans, but this does not mean that they are like humans. In their view, chimps are most clearly related to humans.

”Budgerigars are some of the chattiest birds, and that is reflected in their brains. Budgie brains contain a map of the vocal sounds, which is similar to that found in the human brain and has not been seen in any other bird.

“We found that there was a representation of vocal sounds in a part of the brain that is analogous to a key speech region.”

Source:

 Michael Marshall 2025 Budgie brains have a map of vocal sounds just like humans | New Scientist 19 March

4 tiny, Earth-like planets found circling secod-closest star system to us

 

Image courtesy of International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/R. Proctor/J. Pollard

Joel Kontinen

A new study reveals that four exoplanets, each about 20% to 30% the size of our planet, circle one of our closest stellar neighbour. The rocky alien worlds are close enough that future generations of humans may be able to visit them with futuristic rocket propulsion technology.

 But we would not find live in each of them.  

“Astronomers have long suspected that there was at least one exoplanet orbiting Barnard's Star — a red dwarf with a mass around one-sixth that of the sun. At 5.97 light-years from Earth, it is the fourth-closest star to our solar system, after the three interconnected stars of the Alpha Centauri system. (Five potential planets have also been detected around the stars of Alpha Centauri, though not all of them have been confirmed yet.)”

”But in a new study, published March 11 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, researchers say they have discovered that this wobbling is not caused by the pull of one gas giant but instead by the combined force exerted by four smaller, rocky worlds, each around four times more massive than as they are so close to their sun, they are probably not habitable..

But as the planets are too close to the sun, they probably are not habitable,

Source:

 Harry Baker 2025 4 tiny, Earth-like planets found circling 2nd-closest star system to us — and could be visited by future human generations | Live Science 19 March

Two-fingered dinosaur used its enormous claws to eat leaves

 

Image courtesy of Masato Hattori

Joel Kontinen 

A dinosaur fossil discovered in Mongolia boasts the largest ever complete claw, but the herbivorous species only used it to grasp vegetation.

How can a dinosaur with just two fingers live? This is according to a study just published, but fossils may have some missing items that are found elsewhere.  

A new species of dinosaur found at a Mongolian building site has the largest fully preserved claw ever found. The bipedal, herbivorous animal had only two fingers on each hand, which it may have used to grasp branches and pull fingers them towards its mouth.

The 90-million-year-old fossil – which included parts of the pelvis, both arms and hands, and numerous vertebrae – was found near Khanbogd in the Gobi desert in 2012, but it has only now been properly studied and given the scientific name Duonychus tsogtbaatari. The genus name means “two claws” and the species name honours Mongolian palaeontologist Khishigjav Tsogtbaatar.

Source:

James Woodford  2025 Two-fingered dinosaur used its enormous claws to eat leaves | New Scientist 20 March 

 

Giant Milky Way-like galaxy formed unusually soon after the big bang

 

Image courtesy of Weichen Wang

Joel Kontinen

“The Big Wheel, discovered using the James Webb Space Telescope, formed just 2 billion years after the Big Bang - surprisingly early for a spiral galaxy of a similar size to our Milky Way.”

 According to Big Bang cosmology, no galaxy should be this young, but research shows that this is incorrect and not true.  The Big Bang according to Darwinists cannot produce a galaxy so fast. The millions of years that are placed there, but this is an incorrect testimony of evolution that cannot happen in our time.  

“A newly-discovered spiral galaxy, dubbed the Big Wheel, formed just 2 billion years after the big bang – far earlier, considering its size, than astronomers thought possible.

Themiya Nanayakkara, at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, says the discovery was an accident. He and his colleagues were looking for quasars, energetic regions at the heart of some galaxies, with the James Webb Space Telescope in November 2022 when a “large spiral galaxy popped up”.

Source:  

James Woodford 2025 Big Wheel: Giant Milky Way-like galaxy formed unusually soon after the big bang | New Scientist 17 March