![]() ![]() “ While previous studies hinted at the existence of these early rotating gas-rich disk galaxies, thanks to ALMA we now have unambiguous evidence that they occur as early as 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang,” said lead author Marcel Neeleman of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany Xavier Prochaska, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz. “ Its properties are astonishingly similar to our own galaxy, despite being only 1.5 billion years old,” said coauthor J. The unparalleled power of ALMA made it possible to see this galaxy spinning at 170 miles (272 kilometers) per second, similar to our Milky Way. Wolfe, is the most distant rotating disk galaxy ever observed. ![]() ![]() Galaxy DLA0817g, nicknamed the Wolfe Disk after the late astronomer Arthur M. The discovery, reported May 20 in Nature, was made with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). ![]() But the discovery by an international team of astronomers of a massive rotating disk galaxy, seen when the universe was only ten percent of its current age, challenges the traditional models of galaxy formation. Most massive disk galaxies like our Milky Way formed gradually, reaching their large mass relatively late in the 13.8 billion-year history of the universe. ![]()
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