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Complex and well-organized structure at such an early stage of the universe surprises scientists and could rewrite part of the history of galactic formation
Astronomers have made a surprising discovery using the James Webb Space Telescope. They identified a gigantic spiral galaxy, called Zhulong, which existed only a billion years after the Big Bang. The revelation contradicts previous theories about the formation of galaxies.
Zhúlóng: a distant “dragon”
Zhúlóng, a name that means ““Torch Dragon”, is the most distant disk galaxy ever observed with spiral arms and disk structure. It features a central bulge, well-defined spiral arms, and a star-forming disk. These features are typically associated with closer galaxies that formed billions of years ago.
According to researcher Mengyuan Xiao from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), the Zhulóng disk is more than 60 light-years across and contains more than 100 billion solar masses in stars. The size and mass of the galaxy are comparable to those of the Milky Way.
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New vision of the universe
The discovery raises questions about how galaxies form. For a long time, it was believed that massive spiral galaxies took billions of years to form.
Galaxies in the first billion years of the universe were expected to be small, irregular and disorganized. But Zhúlóng shows a mature structure at a time considered very early.
The galaxy was identified at a redshift of 5,2, indicating its vast distance and age. Infrared images captured by the Webb telescope are changing the way scientists understand the early universe.
PANORAMIC Program and the Future of Discoveries
Zhúlóng was discovered during the PANORAMIC survey, which is focused on detecting rare and distant objects. Astronomer Christina Williams of NOIRLab highlighted the potential of this type of survey to challenge current models of galaxy formation.
For Professor Pascal Oesch, from UNIGE, this is one of the discoveries that show how the Webb telescope is radically transforming the scientific view of the early universe. The full research was published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
