Cosmological significance of the early bright galaxies observed with JWST

The recent discovery of objects with redshift $z>10$ with the help of James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) poses serious challenges to the $\Lambda$CDM cosmological model, which has been in vogue for some time now. The new data indicate that galaxy formation must have taken place much earlier than expected in this model. Another viable class of cosmological models is that of the so-called coasting models, in which the scale factor of the universe varies proportionately with time. In these models, the universe at redshift $z=12$ has ample time ($\sim 1070$ Myrs) for galaxy formation. The earliest such model is the one proposed by E.A. Milne, based on his `kinematic relativity', but it is considered unrealistic for not treating gravity as relevant at cosmological scales. A closed version of an eternal coasting FLRW model was proposed by the present authors even before SNe Ia data began to pour in. Subsequently we developed a more general model of the same class, which is valid for all the three possible geometries, with open, closed or flat spatial sections. In the nonrelativistic era, this model makes the falsifiable prediction that the ratio of matter density to dark energy density is 2. This avoids the cosmic coincidence problem. Moreover, this eternal coasting model allows room for creation of matter from dark energy, that may speed up galaxy and structure formation at the early epochs, as implied by the JWST data. The paper also attempts to review some similar coasting models, but emphasizes the eternal coasting cosmology as the most probable candidate model capable of explaining the presence of high redshift galaxies discovered by JWST.