Rosa Rubicondior: How Can We Tell The Bible Was Written By Ignorant People?

How the Bible's authors saw the Universe.

Astronomers observe largest ever sample of galaxies up to over 12 billion light years away | Aalto University

More stunning images of deep space have been released, once again highlighting the vast and awe-inspiring reality of the universe—one that stands in stark contrast to the ancient cosmology described in the Book of Genesis.

According to that account, the universe was a small, flat Earth covered by a solid dome, fixed and immobile at the centre of creation. The sun, moon, and stars were imagined as small lights affixed to the underside of this dome. Surrounding it all, above and below, were the primordial waters—and somewhere within or beyond this structure lay a magical, supernatural realm inhabited by divine beings bearing a striking resemblance to capricious, tribal warlords, and winged men (Genesis 1:1–18).

And, according to the Bible narrative, it has only existed for 6-10,000 years!

Since the invention of the telescope, and as our instruments have grown ever more sophisticated, our understanding of the universe has revealed a reality far removed from the one imagined by the authors of Genesis. The cosmos is not only vastly older than they could have conceived, but also incomprehensibly immense. Earth itself is far larger and older than they believed, a spherical planet orbiting the Sun—which is just one of perhaps half a trillion stars in our own galaxy. And that galaxy is, in turn, just one among perhaps a trillion others. Altogether, this vast universe is nearly 14 billion years old.

The most recent images are from the James Webb Space Telescope, of a region of deep space, between twelve billion and one billion lightyears away, so showing how the universe has evolved since it was about one billion years old - younger than Earth is now.

Astronomers observe largest ever sample of galaxies up to over 12 billion light years away
New observations from the James Webb Telescope give researchers unique insight into how galaxies have evolved since the universe was under a billion years old.

Image of a galaxy group, selected as the ESA Image of the Month for April, appears from 6.6 billion years ago, at a distance of 7.3 billion light-years, and represents the core of the large group sample discovered in this project.

The largest sample of galaxy groups ever detected has been presented by a team of international astronomers using data from the James Webb Space telescope (JWST) in an area of the sky called COSMOS Web. The study marks a major milestone in extragalactic astronomy, providing unprecedented insights into the formation and evolution of galaxies and the large-scale structure of the universe.

Peering back in time to when the universe was younger than the Earth is now, the images span the period from around twelve billion years ago until one billion years ago. The new catalogue of images, soon to be published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics (A&A), includes nearly 1,700 galaxy groups. The research group’s impressive image of a galaxy cluster over 6 billion light years away will be showcased as the European Space Agency’s (ESA) picture of the month from April 29.

We're able to actually observe some of the first galaxies formed in the universe. We detected 1,678 galaxy groups or proto-clusters – the largest and deepest sample of galaxy groups ever detected – with the James Webb Space telescope. With this sample, we can study the evolution of galaxies in groups over the past 12 billion years of cosmic time.

Ghassem Gozaliasl, co-author
Head of the galaxy groups detection team
Department of Computer Science
Aalto University, Espoo, Finland

The James Webb Space Telescope began operating in 2022. The largest telescope in space, its higher resolution and greater sensitivity have enabled astronomers to see farther and better than ever before. Because light travels at a finite speed, the further away an object is, the further back in time our image of it. By observing very faint, very distant galaxies – the faintest galaxies in this dataset are one billion times dimmer than the human eye can see – the team got a glimpse of what galaxies looked like in the early universe.

A Brightest Group Galaxy (BGG) seen as it was 3 billion years ago, located about 2.7 billion light-years away.

Galaxy groups and clusters are rich environments filled with dark matter, hot gas, and massive central galaxies that often host supermassive black holes, explains Gozaliasl.

The complex interactions between these components play a crucial role in shaping the life cycles of galaxies and driving the evolution of the groups and clusters themselves. By uncovering a more complete history of these cosmic structures, we can better understand how these processes have influenced the formation and growth of both massive galaxies and the largest structures in the universe.

Ghassem Gozaliasl.
Cosmic family history

Galaxies aren’t scattered evenly throughout the universe. Instead, they cluster in dense regions connected by filaments and walls, forming a vast structure known as the cosmic web. Truly isolated galaxies are rare — most reside in galaxy groups, which typically contain anywhere from three to a few dozen galaxies, or in larger galaxy clusters, which can include hundreds or even thousands of galaxies bound together by gravity. Our own Milky Way is part of a small galaxy group known as the Local Group, which includes the Andromeda Galaxy and dozens of smaller galaxies.

Like humans, galaxies come together and make families. Groups and clusters are really important, because within them galaxies can interact and merge together, resulting in the transformation of galaxy structure and morphology. Studying these environments also helps us understand the role of dark matter, feedback from supermassive black holes, and the thermal history of the hot gas that fills the space between galaxies.

Ghassem Gozaliasl.

Group 15, a nearby group viewed 1.5 billion light-years away, shows the mature form of galaxy associations in the present-day universe — observed as they were 12.3 billion years into cosmic time.

Because the new catalog includes observations that span from one billion to twelve billion years ago, scientists can compare some of the earliest structures in the universe with relatively modern ones to learn more about galaxy groups and how they evolve. Studying the history of galaxy groups can also help astronomers understand how the giant, brightest group galaxies (BGGs) at their centres form through repeated mergers — an area explored in depth across several of Gozaliasl’s recent publications.

When we look very deep into the universe, the galaxies have more irregular shapes and are forming many stars. Closer to our time, star formation is what we refer to as ‘quenched’ –– the galaxies have more symmetric structures, like elliptical or spiral galaxies. It’s really exciting to see the shapes changing over cosmic time. We can start to address so many questions about what happened in the universe and how galaxies evolved.

Ghassem Gozaliasl.
Publication:
Toni, Greta; Gozaliasl, Ghassem; Maturi, Matteo; Moscardini, Lauro, et al (2025).
The COSMOS-Web deep galaxy group catalog up to z = 3.7 Astronomy & Astrophysics 697 DOI; 10.1051/0004-6361/202553759

Abstract

Context. Galaxy groups with total masses below ∼1014 M_⊙ and up to a few tens of members are the most common galaxy environment, marking the transition between the field and the most massive galaxy clusters. In this framework, identifying and studying groups plays a crucial role in understanding structure formation and galaxy evolution. Despite the challenges in detecting such relatively small structures, modern deep surveys allow us to build well-characterized samples of galaxy groups up to the regime where the structures we observe today were taking shape.

Aims. We aim to build the largest deep catalog of galaxy groups to date over the COSMOS-Web field effective area of 0.45 deg².

Methods. We leveraged the deep imaging, high resolution, and high-quality photometry from the James Webb Space Telescope observations of the COSMOS-Web field. We used the recent COSMOS-Web photometric catalog with sky position, photometric redshift, and magnitude in a reference band for each selected galaxy. We performed the group search with the Adaptive Matched Identifier of Clustered Objects (AMICO) algorithm, a linear matched filter based on an analytical model for the cluster/group signal. This algorithm has already been tested in wide and deep field surveys, including a successful application to COSMOS data up to z = 2. In this work, we tested the algorithm’s performances at even higher redshift and searched for protocluster cores and groups at z > 2. To benchmark this relatively unexplored regime, we compiled a list of known protoclusters in COSMOS at 2 ≤ z ≤ 3.7 and matched them with our detections. We studied the spatial connection between detected cores through a clustering analysis. We estimated the purity and the completeness of our group sample by creating data-driven mocks via a Monte Carlo approach with the SinFoniA code and linked signal-to-noise to purity levels to define desired purity thresholds.

Results. We detected 1678 groups in the COSMOS-Web field up to z = 3.7 with a purity level of ∼77%, providing a deep catalog of galaxy members that extends nearly two magnitudes deeper than the previous application of AMICO to COSMOS. Around 670 groups have been detected with a purity of 90%. Our catalog includes more than 850 groups whose photometric redshift was confirmed by assigning robust spectroscopic counterparts.

Conclusions. This catalog of galaxy groups is the largest ultra-deep group sample built on JWST observations so far and offers a unique opportunity to explore several aspects of galaxy evolution in different environments spanning ∼12 Gyr and study groups themselves, from the least rich population of groups to the formation of the most massive clusters.

Toni, Greta; Gozaliasl, Ghassem; Maturi, Matteo; Moscardini, Lauro, et al (2025).
The COSMOS-Web deep galaxy group catalog up to z = 3.7 Astronomy & Astrophysics 697 DOI; 10.1051/0004-6361/202553759

Copyright: © 2025 The authors.
Published by EDP Sciences. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

The Teams images feature as April's image of the month in EESA Webb News Picture of the Month, some of which are shown here:

It's difficult to imagine any description of anything which is less accurate than the description of the universe written by Bronze Age story-tellers and published in the Bible, yet, despite this wealth of evidence to the contrary, there are still adults who believe the Bible contains the best available description of reality, far surpassing for accuracy and reliability anything modern science can produce - a denial of reality that would be astonishing in a child, let alone an adult living in a modern technological society. A testament to the distortion of perception that can be caused by religious fundamentalism and the underlying morbid theophobic psychosis that maintains it.

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