May 4, 2026 05:44 PM
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1126708
INTRO: Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have made a surprising discovery about a galaxy long, long ago and far, far away: It isn’t rotating.
That’s something only seen in the most massive, mature galaxies that are closer to us in space and time, said Ben Forrest, a research scientist in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Davis, and first author on the paper published May 4 in Nature Astronomy.
“This one in particular did not show any evidence of rotation, which was surprising and very interesting,” Forrest said. According to current theories, as the first galaxies formed, angular momentum from inflowing gas and the influence of gravity set them spinning.
Over many billions of years, some galaxies, especially those within galaxy clusters, merged with each other multiple times and their combined rotations added to or partly canceled each other. That’s why some galaxies that are closest to Earth (and therefore also relatively recent) can show little overall rotation but a lot of random movement of stars within them.
This process should take an enormously long time, so it’s surprising that galaxy XMM-VID1-2075 had achieved this state when the universe was less than 2 billion years old.
Forrest and colleagues in the MAGAZ3NE (Massive Ancient Galaxies at z>3 NEar-Infrared) survey had previously observed this galaxy with the W.M. Keck observatory in Hawaiʻi.
“Previous MAGAZ3NE observations had confirmed this was one of the most massive galaxies in the early universe, with already several times as many stars as our Milky Way, and also confirmed that it was no longer forming new stars, making it a compelling target for follow-up observations,” Forrest said... (MORE- no ads)
INTRO: Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have made a surprising discovery about a galaxy long, long ago and far, far away: It isn’t rotating.
That’s something only seen in the most massive, mature galaxies that are closer to us in space and time, said Ben Forrest, a research scientist in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Davis, and first author on the paper published May 4 in Nature Astronomy.
“This one in particular did not show any evidence of rotation, which was surprising and very interesting,” Forrest said. According to current theories, as the first galaxies formed, angular momentum from inflowing gas and the influence of gravity set them spinning.
Over many billions of years, some galaxies, especially those within galaxy clusters, merged with each other multiple times and their combined rotations added to or partly canceled each other. That’s why some galaxies that are closest to Earth (and therefore also relatively recent) can show little overall rotation but a lot of random movement of stars within them.
This process should take an enormously long time, so it’s surprising that galaxy XMM-VID1-2075 had achieved this state when the universe was less than 2 billion years old.
Forrest and colleagues in the MAGAZ3NE (Massive Ancient Galaxies at z>3 NEar-Infrared) survey had previously observed this galaxy with the W.M. Keck observatory in Hawaiʻi.
“Previous MAGAZ3NE observations had confirmed this was one of the most massive galaxies in the early universe, with already several times as many stars as our Milky Way, and also confirmed that it was no longer forming new stars, making it a compelling target for follow-up observations,” Forrest said... (MORE- no ads)