Why in news?
Indian researchers from the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics in Pune discovered Alaknanda, a massive spiral galaxy resembling the Milky Way, using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
About
- Alaknanda Galaxy Discovery: Indian researchers from Pune discovered Alaknanda, a grand-design spiral galaxy resembling the Milky Way, existing ~1 billion years after the Big Bang using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
- It features two well-defined spiral arms around a bright central bulge, spanning 30,000 light-years, with 10 billion solar masses in stars and star formation at 63 solar masses/year—20-30 times the Milky Way's rate.
- Published in Astronomy & Astrophysics on December 3, 2025; challenges theories as early galaxies were expected to be chaotic, not structured.
Key Implications
- Indicates early universe was more mature, with efficient gas accretion and disk settling forming spirals sooner than models predict.
- Future JWST and ALMA observations will analyze gas/star kinematics to determine if disk is "cold" (orderly) or "hot" (turbulent), revealing arm formation mechanisms.
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