Astronomers have spotted a galaxy with a structure similar to the Milky Way. That’s not particularly surprising in itself – our home galaxy is quite run-of-the-mill – but the weird thing is that this one is 12 billion light-years away, meaning it’s very well developed for its age.

While we don’t fully understand how galaxies form, it’s generally believed that those in the early days of the universe were turbulent and chaotic. It took many billions of years before they settled down into structures like the Milky Way, with a rotating disc, a bulge in the center, and spiral arms on the outskirts.

But the newly discovered galaxy, known as SPT0418-47, bucks this presumed trend, sporting a disc and bulge structure that’s very before its time. The galaxy is located some 12 billion light-years from Earth, which means we’re seeing it as it was 12 billion years ago, due to the incredible distance involved. At that time the universe was only about 1.4 billion years old, which according to current theories means these galaxies should still be chaotic blobs of stars.

“This result represents a breakthrough in the field of galaxy formation, showing that the structures that we observe in nearby spiral galaxies and in our Milky Way were already in place 12 billion years ago,” says Francesca Rizzo, lead researcher on the study.

Resolving the galaxy’s structure wasn’t easy. At that great distance, galaxies are normally very faint, but this one just so happened to be magnified by the gravity of a much closer galaxy, through a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. That spread the light from SPT0418-47 out into a ring, and the team had to reconstruct its true shape using computer modeling.

The team says that the surprising discovery of such a well-organized galaxy in the early universe will require a rethink of what we thought we knew about galaxy evolution.

The research was published in the journal Nature.

https://newatlas.com/space/advanced-ancient-galaxy-cosmic-evolution/

PermeateFree said:

Astronomers have spotted a galaxy with a structure similar to the Milky Way. That’s not particularly surprising in itself – our home galaxy is quite run-of-the-mill – but the weird thing is that this one is 12 billion light-years away, meaning it’s very well developed for its age.

While we don’t fully understand how galaxies form, it’s generally believed that those in the early days of the universe were turbulent and chaotic. It took many billions of years before they settled down into structures like the Milky Way, with a rotating disc, a bulge in the center, and spiral arms on the outskirts.

But the newly discovered galaxy, known as SPT0418-47, bucks this presumed trend, sporting a disc and bulge structure that’s very before its time. The galaxy is located some 12 billion light-years from Earth, which means we’re seeing it as it was 12 billion years ago, due to the incredible distance involved. At that time the universe was only about 1.4 billion years old, which according to current theories means these galaxies should still be chaotic blobs of stars.

“This result represents a breakthrough in the field of galaxy formation, showing that the structures that we observe in nearby spiral galaxies and in our Milky Way were already in place 12 billion years ago,” says Francesca Rizzo, lead researcher on the study.

Resolving the galaxy’s structure wasn’t easy. At that great distance, galaxies are normally very faint, but this one just so happened to be magnified by the gravity of a much closer galaxy, through a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. That spread the light from SPT0418-47 out into a ring, and the team had to reconstruct its true shape using computer modeling.

The team says that the surprising discovery of such a well-organized galaxy in the early universe will require a rethink of what we thought we knew about galaxy evolution.

The research was published in the journal Nature.

https://newatlas.com/space/advanced-ancient-galaxy-cosmic-evolution/

12 billion years is a heck of a long way away, and most galaxies back then were irregular dwarfs.

The follow up question is: exactly how simil;at to the Milky Way is it?

From this image, it’s not all that Milky-Way-like. I mean, if a student drew that picture as a picture of the Milky Way then you’d fail them, wouldn’t you.

It looks more like an irregular lump in the centre that has recently torn apart another smaller lump that approached too close. A single collision would do it, perhaps 200 million years suffices to form the irregular thick disk shape extremities. That puts its origin back from 1.4 billion years to closer to 1.2 billion years. Which is young.

I particularly like that this galaxy is stretched into a complete Einstein ring by gravitational lensing. Complete Einstein rings are really quite rare, requiring something very close to spherical symmetry of the galaxy (or cluster) intervening between us and it.

mollwollfumble said:

PermeateFree said:

Astronomers have spotted a galaxy with a structure similar to the Milky Way. That’s not particularly surprising in itself – our home galaxy is quite run-of-the-mill – but the weird thing is that this one is 12 billion light-years away, meaning it’s very well developed for its age.

While we don’t fully understand how galaxies form, it’s generally believed that those in the early days of the universe were turbulent and chaotic. It took many billions of years before they settled down into structures like the Milky Way, with a rotating disc, a bulge in the center, and spiral arms on the outskirts.

But the newly discovered galaxy, known as SPT0418-47, bucks this presumed trend, sporting a disc and bulge structure that’s very before its time. The galaxy is located some 12 billion light-years from Earth, which means we’re seeing it as it was 12 billion years ago, due to the incredible distance involved. At that time the universe was only about 1.4 billion years old, which according to current theories means these galaxies should still be chaotic blobs of stars.

“This result represents a breakthrough in the field of galaxy formation, showing that the structures that we observe in nearby spiral galaxies and in our Milky Way were already in place 12 billion years ago,” says Francesca Rizzo, lead researcher on the study.

Resolving the galaxy’s structure wasn’t easy. At that great distance, galaxies are normally very faint, but this one just so happened to be magnified by the gravity of a much closer galaxy, through a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. That spread the light from SPT0418-47 out into a ring, and the team had to reconstruct its true shape using computer modeling.

The team says that the surprising discovery of such a well-organized galaxy in the early universe will require a rethink of what we thought we knew about galaxy evolution.

The research was published in the journal Nature.

https://newatlas.com/space/advanced-ancient-galaxy-cosmic-evolution/

12 billion years is a heck of a long way away, and most galaxies back then were irregular dwarfs.

The follow up question is: exactly how simil;at to the Milky Way is it?

From this image, it’s not all that Milky-Way-like. I mean, if a student drew that picture as a picture of the Milky Way then you’d fail them, wouldn’t you.

It looks more like an irregular lump in the centre that has recently torn apart another smaller lump that approached too close. A single collision would do it, perhaps 200 million years suffices to form the irregular thick disk shape extremities. That puts its origin back from 1.4 billion years to closer to 1.2 billion years. Which is young.

I particularly like that this galaxy is stretched into a complete Einstein ring by gravitational lensing. Complete Einstein rings are really quite rare, requiring something very close to spherical symmetry of the galaxy (or cluster) intervening between us and it.

Say what you like moll, I am rather underwhelmed by celestial bodies, but before you crap too much on it, just remember the people who discovered and studied this phenomenon would be highly trained professionals who would know vastly more than me and I would suggest, considerably more than you.

Science welcomes considered criticism as it can add immensely to our combined understanding, but to just vent your opinion as fact, serves no purpose at all.

PermeateFree said:

Science welcomes considered criticism as it can add immensely to our combined understanding, but to just vent your opinion as fact, serves no purpose at all.

YEAH!

SCIENCE said:

PermeateFree said:

Science welcomes considered criticism as it can add immensely to our combined understanding, but to just vent your opinion as fact, serves no purpose at all.

YEAH!

Pleased you agree.

PermeateFree said:

mollwollfumble said:

PermeateFree said:

Astronomers have spotted a galaxy with a structure similar to the Milky Way. That’s not particularly surprising in itself – our home galaxy is quite run-of-the-mill – but the weird thing is that this one is 12 billion light-years away, meaning it’s very well developed for its age.

While we don’t fully understand how galaxies form, it’s generally believed that those in the early days of the universe were turbulent and chaotic. It took many billions of years before they settled down into structures like the Milky Way, with a rotating disc, a bulge in the center, and spiral arms on the outskirts.

But the newly discovered galaxy, known as SPT0418-47, bucks this presumed trend, sporting a disc and bulge structure that’s very before its time. The galaxy is located some 12 billion light-years from Earth, which means we’re seeing it as it was 12 billion years ago, due to the incredible distance involved. At that time the universe was only about 1.4 billion years old, which according to current theories means these galaxies should still be chaotic blobs of stars.

“This result represents a breakthrough in the field of galaxy formation, showing that the structures that we observe in nearby spiral galaxies and in our Milky Way were already in place 12 billion years ago,” says Francesca Rizzo, lead researcher on the study.

Resolving the galaxy’s structure wasn’t easy. At that great distance, galaxies are normally very faint, but this one just so happened to be magnified by the gravity of a much closer galaxy, through a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. That spread the light from SPT0418-47 out into a ring, and the team had to reconstruct its true shape using computer modeling.

The team says that the surprising discovery of such a well-organized galaxy in the early universe will require a rethink of what we thought we knew about galaxy evolution.

The research was published in the journal Nature.

https://newatlas.com/space/advanced-ancient-galaxy-cosmic-evolution/

12 billion years is a heck of a long way away, and most galaxies back then were irregular dwarfs.

The follow up question is: exactly how simil;at to the Milky Way is it?

From this image, it’s not all that Milky-Way-like. I mean, if a student drew that picture as a picture of the Milky Way then you’d fail them, wouldn’t you.

It looks more like an irregular lump in the centre that has recently torn apart another smaller lump that approached too close. A single collision would do it, perhaps 200 million years suffices to form the irregular thick disk shape extremities. That puts its origin back from 1.4 billion years to closer to 1.2 billion years. Which is young.

I particularly like that this galaxy is stretched into a complete Einstein ring by gravitational lensing. Complete Einstein rings are really quite rare, requiring something very close to spherical symmetry of the galaxy (or cluster) intervening between us and it.

Say what you like moll, I am rather underwhelmed by celestial bodies, but before you crap too much on it, just remember the people who discovered and studied this phenomenon would be highly trained professionals who would know vastly more than me and I would suggest, considerably more than you.

Science welcomes considered criticism as it can add immensely to our combined understanding, but to just vent your opinion as fact, serves no purpose at all.

> considerably more than you.

Yes and no. Because I’ve had a lifelong interest, I found that there wasn’t a single thing in the whole of Hawking’s “A brief history of time” that I didn’t already know before reading it. If I had better skill with wordsmithing, I could have written the whole book myself.

I this case, I’m judging the timescale by what I know about the dynamics of galaxy collisions and in particular about tidal streams. This isn’t a huge amount of knowledge, but all you really need to know is Newton’s law of gravity.