An end in sight?

Mankind has been exploring and searching for the extent of the environs for centuries. Many aspects have been pursued. The farthest reaching aspect pursued is the extent of space. That search has expanded enormously from the local grounds, to continents, to a global awareness, to the immediate firmament, to way far beyond what the eyes can detect. to features that are trillions of light years distant. We have become so accustomed to hearing reports on stars no matter how many or few. Yet, how far does this pursuit go?

In early 2024, three stupendous announcements were made from scientists. These reports may give clues  as to how far the environments extend, and may end, thanks to the powerful probing of the James Webb Space Telescope and other devices. After many centuries of searching, could an end be in sight?

The clues for the extent of formation may have been found:

A galaxy when the universe is perceived to be 5.5 % old at 700 million years had ceased making stars while other galaxies were still making stars as the universe was young and still developing. Such situations, unexplained, are termed 'quenched' or 'dead'. This is the youngest detected incidence so far. Circumstances  as to why a galaxy would so early shut down is being explored fervently. This galaxy ids dubbed JADES-GS-27-01-QU.

Another galaxy, ZF-UDS-7329, is barely found at 11 billions years old in the assumed 13 billion year old universe.  But it has two oddities. One, for being  in the early stage of the universe's growth, it is found to be very massive ,like our Milky Way, so early it is not plottable with current theories of growth. A massive galaxy showing at 11 billion years should not exist. The other oddity with this galaxy, which may be the oldest, despite the power of the telescope, there appears "no evidence for any younger star-forming clumps." Has a limit for star formation been reached? Will there

be found thereafter only starless fields?

If that doesn't pop your eyes and thinking. Not even by chance, a radio telescope in West Virginia was pointed the wrong direction to a blank area not believed to have anything substantial. The return reading roared to life from that location.

An amazing blob or haze was indicated at 270 million light years distant. It is the size of 1-2 billion solar masses but essentially invisible. There are no stars at all found in it. Completely starless galaxy. It appears to be undisturbed by other galaxies or large bodies for 13 billion years. Nothing to compress hydrogen clouds and initiate star formation is evident at discovery. It seems stationary in clouds of hydrogen and likely dark matter which is invisible. It is termed dark galaxy J0613+52.

 A galaxy in presumably early universe, actually more than one, shuts down star making  leaving it potentially in the dark since that time. Another is a blob of hydrogen gas perhaps 13 billion years old has no stars to see in it whatsoever. Enveloped in the hydrogen cloud it exists only in darkness, spawning no light.

These may indicate limits to star conversion of galactic elements and the persistence of the dark natures and dark matter which now are found to play larger roles in the universe, and a limit may show, "no evidence for any younger star-forming clumps."

Showing that all developments have limitations.

"I honestly feel like the universe is trying to tell us something."

Nhat-Minh Nguyen, Sept. 2023.

'We need to find out if we are missing something."

Adam G. Riess, March 20, 2024

"There may be something woven into the fabric of space that we don't yet

understand."

Examining news releases, at the time of years before Hubble Space Telescope was launched, I concluded there is the possibility of one or two distant physical rifts or troughs to be detected in the universe.

That is yet to be ascertained but the possibility has not diminished in my mind as the feedback persists to this day.