An article published in “The Astrophysical Journal Letters” reports the identification of a population of rare red spiral galaxies in the SMACS J0723.3-7327 galaxy cluster. A team of researchers used observations conducted with the James Webb Space Telescope to find details of these galaxies which are estimated to date back to when the universe was about two to three billion years old.

The unprecedented detail captured by Webb helps to make progress in understanding the processes taking place in galaxies of various ages and understand why some appear red. Finding several very old ones suggests that over 10 billion years ago, red galaxies were more common.