Indian Astronomers Discover Ancient Spiral Galaxy Alaknanda

Key facts

• Indian astronomers have discovered 'Alaknanda,' a remarkably well-formed spiral galaxy.
• The discovery was made by astronomers Rashi Jain and Yogesh Wadadekar from Pune-based National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA).
• The astronomers used the powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) for this discovery.
• Galaxy Alaknanda is located 12 billion light years away and is 30,000 light years across.
• Alaknanda likely formed when the Universe was only about 1.5 billion years old.
• The galaxy exhibits a mature structure with clear arms, similar to our Milky Way, in a fraction of the time previously thought possible.
• Alaknanda has the textbook grand spiral design, with two clear spiral arms wrapped around a bright centre.
• The galaxy is forming new stars at an exceptionally rapid rate, nearly 30 times higher than the Milky Way today.
• Observations suggest Alaknanda contains around 10 billion times the mass of the Sun in stars.
• Its spiral arms show a beads-on-a-string pattern that signals active star formation.
• The discovery challenges existing models of galaxy formation, as scientists believed galaxies that formed this quickly after the Big Bang should be chaotic and irregular in design.
• The low contribution of light from Alaknanda's central bulge suggests it grew mainly through smooth gas accretion rather than through major collisions.
• The research on Alaknanda was published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
• Scientists will continue to study Alaknanda to understand how this galaxy assembled so fast.