James Webb Space Telescope finds hidden stars in ancient galaxies
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) just helped scientists find a bunch of faint, hidden stars in some of the universe's oldest galaxies.
Turns out, these early galaxies have way more small stars than anyone thought, way more than what we see in places like our own Milky Way.
This shakes up what scientists believed about how stars formed over time.
Hidden stars increase galaxy mass estimates
The discovery was possible thanks to new data from JWST and the Very Large Telescope (VLT).
As Chloe Cheng from Leiden University put it, "the galaxy as a whole is much more massive than previous estimates suggested."
In one case, tiny hidden stars made up up to four times more mass than expected!
Lead researcher Mariska Kriek says this could change how we think about galaxy growth and even planet formation in the early universe.