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Indian astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have discovered a massive spiral galaxy with distinct arms, named A2744-GDSp-z4. It turned out that it was formed when the Universe was only 1.5 billion years old.
As Day.Az reports, a preprint of the work was published on the arXiv portal.
Spiral galaxies are known for their bright arms that extend out from a central core. These arms are formed as a result of the compaction of matter in the galactic disk and contribute to the active formation of stars. The appearance of such structures in the early Universe was a rare occurrence.
Spiral galaxy A2744-GDSp-z4 stands out for its size and mass. The diameter of its disk is about 32 thousand light years, and the mass of stars reaches 14 billion solar masses. The age of the stellar structures is estimated at 228 million years, and the star formation rate is 57.6 solar masses per year. Researchers suggest that star formation in the galaxy began approximately 839 million years after the Big Bang.
The existence of such a large and complex galaxy in the early stages of the Universe raises questions among scientists. Traditional models suggest that large structures form gradually, but A2744-GDSp-z4 challenges this idea. Astronomers intend to continue studying this object to understand how it was able to form a large disk and spiral arms in such a short time.