Japanese astronomers from the University of Tokyo have discovered rotation in a small galaxy, which is located at a distance of 13.3 billion light years from our planet. This they managed to see with the NASA telescope, reports ScienceAlert. This galaxy is one of the first in the early universe, and its rotation rate is much slower than that of the Milky Way.
The discovered galaxy was named MACS1149-JD1 and was discovered in 2018. It is very dim, and due to its great distance from the Earth, its light has been stretched into longer wavelengths. The reddish emission showed that the galaxy began to exist just 500 million years after the Big Bang.
The diameter of the galaxy is 3 thousand light years. For comparison, the diameter of the Milky Way is 100,000 light years. The rotation speed of MACS1149-JD1 is 50 km/s, but our galaxy rotates at a speed of 200 km/s.
According to scientist Akio Inoue from the University of Tokyo, the speed of the discovered galaxy is much lower than that of other known galaxies that appeared later. Therefore, researchers believe that it is at the initial stage of its evolution, and its rotational movements are only gaining momentum. This makes it possible to understand that small galaxies are overgrown with matter and become faster after billions of years.
He also added that MACS1149-JD1 is the most distant example of a rotating galaxy. With the help of research, astronomers have seen that the northern part of the galaxy is moving away from the Earth more slowly than the southern part. It is shaped like a disc.
Scientists using the Webb telescope want to conduct a series of studies to learn about the evolution of rotational speed.
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