Scientists have found a galaxy far out in the Universe called REBELS-25, which is a twin of the Milky Way. At the same time, we see it only 700 million years after the Big Bang. It’s a mystery how it evolved so quickly in such a short period of time.
Incredible galaxy REBELS-25
The journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society published an article in which a group of astronomers from the European Southern Observatory reported the discovery of the galaxy REBELS-25. Its peculiarity is that its redshift is 7.31.
For most people, it doesn’t mean anything. However, astronomers know that this is a value related to the rate of “dispersal” of galaxies, and its value indicates that this star system is very far away from us.
In fact, we see it as it was 700 million years after the Universe was formed. But it already has the shape of a disk with spirals, which means that it is actually a twin of the Milky Way. And that’s very strange, given its age.
Milky Way and galaxy evolution
There are many galaxies in the Universe that are extremely similar to the Milky Way. It is not unique. The problem is that all these star systems we see are several billion years old. And they weren’t always as we know them.
Even our Milky Way at the beginning of its existence, according to current theories, should be a small galaxy of irregular shape, the movement of stars in which had a chaotic character. And only after undergoing a series of mergers and long evolution, it became like a disk with a spiral structure.
REBELS-25 just didn’t have time for that. But it looks exactly like the Milky Way. Considering it too old or too young for that is a matter of definition, but this star system is not alone. Something is very wrong with our theory of galaxy evolution, and only further research can reveal what exactly it is.
According to phys.org
