NASA’s James Webb Telescope Discovers Milky Way's Long-Lost Twin 'Zhúlóng', Formed 800 Years After The Big Bang

The James Webb Space Telescope has led to many space breakthroughs. The advanced technology helps astronomers spot space phenomena that previously went unnoticed. Another discovery by the famed telescope has now rocked the space world, stated Live Science. Findings regarding this new discovery have been published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Astronomers have spotted what they believe to be Zhúlóng, a 'twin galaxy' of the Milky Way. The discovery was made based on some images captured by JWST. These images feature light possibly emitted just one billion years after the Big Bang. The images came through from the ANORAMIC survey (GO-2514). This survey made use of a special mode present in the telescope called "pure parallel," stated Space. This mode allows the telescope to capture high-quality images of one particular target in space, and at the same time have high-definition data of the target's surroundings. The process allows the telescope to map large areas of space, leading to the discovery of several phenomena.

The galaxy spotted in the images appeared to be fully formed and exhibited a central bulge of old stars, two spiral arms, and stellar newborns, stated Live Science. Considering the similarities this galaxy shared with the Milky Way, experts determined that it was a twin galaxy. It almost looked like it was waving its spiral arms back at us. The name Zhúlóng was given to the galaxy by astronomers after a mythical Chinese sun dragon.

The discovery challenges past assertions regarding the formation of such galaxies. Researchers previously thought that large galaxies like these take billions of years to form, and are formed with the assimilation of several small galaxies. Based on the age of the light in the images, researchers believe that this newly discovered galaxy was formed early in cosmic time, and hence did not take billions of years to form. According to examinations, Zhúlóng formed more than a billion years before Ceres-2112, another spiral galaxy discovered by JWST in 2023. All these estimates suggest that Zhúlóng achieved the size of the Milky Way galaxy in less than one billion years.

Zhúlóng galaxy has been determined to be 12.8 billion years away from Earth, stated Space. Researchers have noted many similarities between these two galaxies. The most noteworthy one has been the size of their stellar disks and the mass of those regions. Zhúlóng's disk measures around 60,000 light-years and has a mass 100 billion times greater than the sun. The Milky Way's disk is just slightly wider at 100,000 light-years, while its mass is just 46 billion times greater than the sun's.

Scientists are hopeful that in the future, they will be able to examine Zhúlóng further by incorporating data from the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA). ALMA is a collection of 66 radio telescopes placed in the Atacama desert region of northern Chile. Zhúlóng, along with being the largest Milky Way twin galaxy, is also the most distant spiral galaxy to be uncovered to date, stated Discover Magazine. Such a discovery highlights how much of a mystery the universe remains for humans, and how advanced technologies can help researchers in understanding the outer world better.