Astronomers in India have spotted an ancient spiral galaxy — Alaknanda — whose light reaches Earth after traveling roughly 12 billion years. This means we are seeing it as it existed when the universe was only about 1.5 billion years old.
The discovery was made by researchers Rashi Jain and Yogesh Wadadekar at the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA-TIFR), Pune. They were analysing deep-field images captured by JWST as part of large survey programmes targeting distant galaxies.
What makes Alaknanda extraordinary is its structure: a well-organized disk, a bright central bulge, and two sweeping, symmetric spiral arms — a “grand-design” spiral reminiscent of our own Milky Way. The galaxy spans roughly 30,000 light-years.
Defying Expectations: Structure in an Era of Cosmic Chaos
Conventional astrophysical models have long held that in the first few billion years after the Big Bang, galaxies would be chaotic, irregular and still in the process of assembling. The frequent collisions and mergers among proto-galaxies were thought to prevent the formation of stable, symmetric disks and spiral arms at such early epochs.
Yet Alaknanda turns that assumption on its head. Its well-defined spiral structure suggests that under certain conditions, complex galactic architecture — disks, bulges, spiral arms — could emerge far sooner than previously believed. This implies that processes like gas inflow, disk settling and star formation were operating efficiently in the early universe.
Moreover, Alaknanda appears to be undergoing intense star formation — astronomers estimate a star-formation rate many times that of the Milky Way today. Some reports suggest the galaxy was building up mass rapidly, with half its stars forming in a relatively short cosmic span.
How the Discovery Was Made
The key enabling tools behind the discovery are the extraordinary sensitivity of JWST and a phenomenon called gravitational lensing. Alaknanda lies behind a massive galaxy cluster known as Abell 2744 (also known as “Pandora’s Cluster”). The cluster’s intense gravity bends and magnifies the light of more distant background galaxies — acting like a natural cosmic telescope. This lensing amplified Alaknanda’s light, making its delicate spiral arms visible even though the galaxy lies across billions of light-years.
The researchers used JWST images captured through more than 20 different filters, enabling them to map the galaxy across a wide range of wavelengths. This multi-band photometry allowed them to estimate its distance, structure, dust content, star formation rate, and stellar mass with greater precision.
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