ALMA | ESO | 2020 Aug 12
Galaxy is distorted, appearing as a ring of light in the sky
Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is a partner, have revealed an extremely distant and therefore very young galaxy that looks surprisingly like our Milky Way. The galaxy is so far away its light has taken more than 12 billion years to reach us: we see it as it was when the Universe was just 1.4 billion years old. It is also surprisingly unchaotic, contradicting theories that all galaxies in the early Universe were turbulent and unstable. This unexpected discovery challenges our understanding of how galaxies form, giving new insights into the past of our Universe. ...
While the galaxy the astronomers studied, called SPT0418-47, doesn’t appear to have spiral arms, it has at least two features typical of our Milky Way: a rotating disc and a bulge, the large group of stars packed tightly around the galactic centre. This is the first time a bulge has been seen this early in the history of the Universe, making SPT0418-47 the most distant Milky Way look-alike. ...
Astronomers Find Most Distant Milky Way Look-Alike with Gravitational Lensing
Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics | 2020 Aug 12
A Dynamically Cold Disk Galaxy in the Early Universe ~ F. Rizzo et al
- Nature 584(7820):201 (13 Aug 2020) DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2572-6 (pdf)