The Role of Modern Observation

Understanding the structure problem has been made more acute by modern observations that have pushed look-back times to near the age of the Universe.

When look-back times were smaller in the earlier history of astronomy, we could assume that the formation of galaxies and larger structures had billions of years to take place. The detection of distant quasars and galaxies nearer to the dawn of time has taken that luxury away: it is now clear that the galaxies began forming very quickly. This is a much harder problem to explain than if they had taken billions of years to form.