NASA Web Site Finds Spiral Galaxies Formed Earlier Than Ever Thought

Like most good science, large telescopes often end up creating more confusion than they solve. Such was the case with NASA’s Webb Space Telescope whose early space observations have continued to push back the era of galaxy formation to earlier and earlier times and higher and higher changes.

What is now clear is that there is something wrong with current cosmological theories.

In another new observation by the Webb Space Telescope, a team led by the University of Missouri has found an unexpected number of spiral galaxies, which have thin disks and already existed two billion years after the big bang itself.

In a paper published in Astrophysical Journal Letters, a team of researchers at the University of Missouri in Columbia, used NASA’s Webb telescope to study some of the earliest galaxies ever discovered. They were shocked to discover that these early galaxies were not only more common than previously thought, but had already formed fully formed spiral arms and disks unlike what we find in our Local Group of galaxies.

Our work suggests that spiral galaxies formed several billion years earlier than previously believed, Vicki Kuhn, lead author of the paper and a graduate student in astronomy at the University of Missouri, told me via email.

The Missouri team found that about 30 percent of the observed galaxies had formed a spiral structure within the universe’s first two billion years. Not only did the formation of galaxies occur much faster than previously thought, but the old hypothesis that many spiral galaxies formed in about half of the current age of the universe will have to be revised.

The team used the Webb Early Emission Survey for Science (CEERS) to identify spiral galaxies, the authors note. Of the 873 galaxies, 216 were found to have a spiral structure, they write.

We use only one small region of the sky surveyed by the CEERS program, Yicheng Guo, an astronomer at the University of Missouri and one of the paper’s co-authors, told me via email. It’s an area of ​​the sky that’s comparable to the tip of a pin held in an overhead position, says Kuhn.

That is an amazing observational sky. As Guo is quick to point out, it may be a stroke of luck that the team was able to see these early galaxies at very early times in the universe.

Disc Make Galaxy

Our Milky Way is a disk galaxy with spiral arms; it’s a “thin” disc, says Guo. People used to believe that disks in the early universe were thick and that these thick disks had to become thin disks first, he says. And then create spiral arms in them, says Guo. But our work suggests that thinning and forming spiral arms both happened at the same time in the first few billion years of the universe, he says.

What lies ahead?

Webb is expected to conduct large and detailed observations to extend the Missouri team’s analysis of spiral galaxies at high redshift, the team notes in their paper.

What is more surprising?

The percentage of spiral galaxies we see is fairly flat over the long universe, from two billion years after the universe formed to 7 billion years after the big bang, says Guo.

This means that the start of spiral formation was much earlier than when the universe was 2 billion years old, he says. This means that even with the Webb Telescope, we have yet to observe the true origins of spiral galaxies in the universe, says Guo.

Rethink

Therefore, we may need to rethink our understanding of galaxy formation, says Kuhn.