A massive survey of 6860 galaxies shows that light fades with distance in a way that the standard model of the universe cannot explain.
The standard cosmological model predicts that the surface brightness of galaxies should dim at a very specific rate as the universe expands. This study used the James Webb Space Telescope to test this prediction across nearly 7,000 galaxies. The results show a significant departure from what the expansion math says should happen. This suggests that our fundamental assumptions about how the universe grows might be missing a major piece of physics. If these findings hold, we may need to rethink the entire timeline of the Big Bang and cosmic expansion.
Cosmological Observational Tests in the JWST Era. II: The Tolman Test
arXiv · 2604.27867
In this work, we investigate a classical cosmological test - the dependence of galaxy surface brightness on redshift z (the Tolman test). We analyzed 6 860 galaxies with reliably determined spectroscopic redshifts from the ASTRODEEP-JWST photometric catalogue. We find that (a) the mean surface brightness of galaxies indeed decreases with increasing distance, and (b) the observed trend shows a significant departure from the prediction of the standard cosmological model, which expects the mean sur