Astronomers found the most distant galaxy similar to the Milky Way ever seen . Nominated Rebels-25 it challenges the theories that, to have the organizational characteristics that this system shows, it would take billions of years longer than the age at which it was observed .
The data collected shows what it was like when the Universe was just 700 million years old, due to the speed it takes for light to reach the telescopes’ field of view.
For this study, images from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (Alma), located in Chile, were used, and the discoveries obtained from these observations challenge existing theories about galaxy formation.
According to the study published in magazine Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society this Monday (7), to reach the level of organization observed in Rebels-25, it would take billions of years more than it had when observed. Its characteristics, then, resemble our galaxy in terms of system formation.
“Seeing a galaxy with so many similarities to our Milky Way, which is strongly dominated by rotation, challenges our understanding of how quickly galaxies in the early Universe evolve into the ordered systems of today’s cosmos,” said Lucie Rowland, a doctoral student at Leiden University and author of the study.
The features that surprised astronomers by not being chaotic as expected involve an elongated central bar, a rotating disk with well-defined structures and spiral arms, although more observations are needed to confirm this.
The data obtained by Alma and used in this study could be a starting point for further research that has the potential to transform our understanding of the formation of early galaxies and the evolution of the Universe.
This content was originally published in Astronomers find galaxy most similar to the Milky Way ever seen on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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