Using the ALMA radio telescope, scientists from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) have made a surprising discovery that challenges our understanding of the evolution of galaxies. Just 700 million years after the Big Bang, a galaxy similar in structure to the Milky Way was discovered. It is the most distant spiral galaxy with a rotating disk in the entire history of observation. It definitely shouldn’t have been there.

The modern theory of the evolution of stars and galaxies believes that a clear and orderly structure with a rotating disk will emerge from the chaos created by the fusion of these objects only after several billion years of evolution. Look at the Milky Way! It took 13.8 billion years for this galaxy to achieve harmony in terms of geometry and motion. Thanks to the James Webb telescope, discoveries began to disrupt the harmony of theories. For example, a year ago the “twin” of the Milky Way, discovered 2 billion years after the Big Bang, became known. A new discovery has revealed an even more glaring oddity. A mature galaxy with a rotating disk was discovered 1.3 billion years ago.

The strange galaxy was named REBELS-25. Strictly speaking, it was not discovered in ALMA (Atacama Large Array Antenna) data today. But since the discovery of REBELS-25, scientists have accumulated enough evidence to convince themselves that REBELS-25 is what it seems. Additional studies have gathered evidence that this galaxy is the outermost rotating disk, with an advanced structure at its center featuring a bridge of stars and spiral arms. This huge structure could not and should not be what we see when observed.

“The observation of a rotation-dominated galaxy so similar to our own Milky Way challenges our understanding of how quickly the galaxies of the early universe evolved into the ordered galaxies of the modern cosmos.” Lucie Rowland, PhD student and first author of the study, said: