James Webb Finds 100-Billion-Sun Galaxy With No Rotation 1.8 Billion Years After Big Bang
Updated
Updated · en.clickpetroleoegas.com.br · May 29
James Webb Finds 100-Billion-Sun Galaxy With No Rotation 1.8 Billion Years After Big Bang
1 articles · Updated · en.clickpetroleoegas.com.br · May 29
ZF-COS-20115 appears as massive as the Milky Way yet shows no detectable rotation, making it an outlier among young galaxies and a direct challenge to standard galaxy-formation models.
30 hours of JWST observations with the NIRSpec instrument measured nearly uniform velocities across the galaxy, rather than the blue-shift/red-shift split expected from a spinning system.
Researchers said the object formed about 1.8 billion years after the Big Bang, when similarly distant galaxies are generally expected to retain clear rotational motion.
Two leading explanations are emerging: direct collapse of primordial gas without a disk phase, or a violent merger of smaller proto-galaxies that erased angular momentum and rapidly quenched star formation.
The finding, published in Nature Astronomy, is likely to drive new simulations and searches for similar non-rotating early galaxies to test whether ZF-COS-20115 is rare or part of a broader class.
How can a galaxy as massive as the Milky Way exist without any spin so soon after the Big Bang?
Is this non-spinning galaxy a unique cosmic ghost, or the first of a mysterious new class of objects?
XMM-VID1-2075: Early Universe’s Massive, Spinless Galaxy Defies Evolutionary Timelines
Overview
The discovery of XMM-VID1-2075 has revealed a major anomaly in our understanding of how galaxies formed in the early universe. Unlike what scientists expected, this distant galaxy became a 'slow rotator' very quickly, showing little rotation at a time when most galaxies should still be developing. Instead of a slow, gradual change, evidence points to a dramatic, single collision as the cause, supported by the observation of extra light beside the galaxy. This challenges existing models, which predict slower evolution, and highlights the need to rethink how massive galaxies can transform so rapidly in the young universe.