The revolution that the observations of the James Webb telescope have brought about for the science of the Cosmos is beginning to bear fruit: a team of researchers led by the Center for Astrobiology (CAB) has discovered the most distant galaxy similar to the Milky Way of those observed so far. now, revealing that The Universe was more organized than thought from an early era.
The discovery, published this Wednesday by the magazine Natureshows a galaxy that forms a spiral around a bar of stars – similar to the image of the Milky Way – that would have formed 11.7 billion years agowhen the universe was only 2.1 billion years old, 15% of its current age, which is estimated at 13.8 billion years.
The discovery of ‘ceers-2112’the scientific name that researchers have given to the newly found galaxy, dismantles the conception that the structure of spiral galaxies, such as the Milky Way, would not have been consolidated until the universe reached half its current age (some time ago). less than 7,000 million years ago).
“Our study reveals that galaxies similar to the Milky Way already existed 11.7 billion years ago,” one of the main authors explained in an interview with EFE, Luca Constantineresearcher at the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) at the CAB in Madrid.
Costantin has detailed that ‘ceers-2112’ is considered a barred spiral galaxy “because it presents a kind of spiral arms that rotate around a central area, where there is a bar-shaped structure of stars. And the most peculiar thing is that the galaxy has the same number of stars that at this moment in the universe our galaxy had”.