ISLAMABAD: Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have found an ancient galaxy that is not spinning, surprising scientists who study how galaxies form, Space Daily reported on Sunday.
The galaxy, called XMM-VID1-2075, existed when the universe was less than 2 billion years old. That makes it extremely old and distant from Earth.
According to University of California-Davis (UC Davis) researchers, early galaxies are expected to rotate because gas flowing into them, combined with gravity, usually sets them spinning.
But this galaxy showed no clear sign of rotation. Instead, its stars and material appear to move in a more random way. That pattern is normally seen in very large, older galaxies closer to Earth, which have had billions of years to change through repeated collisions and mergers.
Ben Forrest, a UC Davis research scientist and lead author of the study published in Nature Astronomy, said the finding was surprising because the galaxy had reached this slow-moving state so early in cosmic history, according to his paper published in Nature Astronomy journal.
The galaxy is also unusually massive for its age, with several times more stars than the Milky Way, and it had already stopped forming new stars.
The team studied XMM-VID1-2075 and two other ancient galaxies using Webb’s powerful instruments. One galaxy was clearly rotating, another looked disorganized, and XMM-VID1-2075 showed no rotation at all.
The James Webb telescope made this possible because such faraway galaxies appear tiny and are very difficult to study from the ground.
Scientists think one possible explanation is a major collision between two galaxies spinning in opposite directions. Such a crash could have canceled out much of the rotation.
The researchers also noticed extra light to one side of the galaxy, which may point to another object interacting with it.
The discovery matters because it gives astronomers a new way to test ideas about how galaxies grew in the young universe.
Researchers now plan to search for more examples.
Finding out whether XMM-VID1-2075 is unusual or part of a wider pattern could help scientists better understand how today’s galaxies came to be.
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