October 9, 2024

The REBELS-25 galaxy as seen by the ALMA radio telescope (Image ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/L. Rowland et al.)

An article accepted for publication in the journal “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society” reports the discovery of a primordial galaxy that was cataloged as REBELS-25 and shows a rotating structure that is already ordered in a way that isn’t expected from such an ancient galaxy. A team of researchers used the ALMA radio telescope to study REBELS-25 and trace the movement of gas within it. The data collected will be invaluable in understanding how a galaxy that we see as it was when the universe was about 700 million years old can have a structure that is already becoming a spiral like the one of the Milky Way at that time.