{"id":470055,"date":"2026-05-05T20:14:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T20:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/470055\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T20:14:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T20:14:16","slug":"webb-discovers-slow-rotating-galaxy-in-early-universe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/470055\/","title":{"rendered":"Webb Discovers Slow-Rotating Galaxy in Early Universe"},"content":{"rendered":"

In today\u2019s Universe, most galaxies are held together by orderly rotation. But among the largest, no-longer star-forming systems, many are instead dominated by the chaotic motion of their stars \u2014 a class of galaxies astronomers call slow rotators. These galaxies are expected to be rare in the early Universe, and until now, observations have revealed only fast-spinning systems. New observations from the NASA\/ESA\/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have revealed a slow-rotating massive galaxy, named XMM-VID1-2075, at redshift z = 3.449 (we\u2019re seeing the galaxy as it was about 12 billion years ago).<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"This<\/a><\/p>\n

This Webb\/NIRSpec\/IFU image shows the slow-rotator galaxy XMM-VID1-2075. Image credit: Forrest et al., doi: 10.1038\/s41550-026-02855-0.<\/p>\n

According to current theories, as the first galaxies formed, angular momentum from inflowing gas and the influence of gravity set them spinning.<\/p>\n

Over many billions of years, some galaxies, especially those within galaxy clusters, merged with each other multiple times and their combined rotations added to or partly canceled each other.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why some galaxies that are closest to Earth can show little overall rotation but a lot of random movement of stars within them.<\/p>\n

This process should take an enormously long time, so it\u2019s surprising that the newly-discovered galaxy, XMM-VID1-2075, had achieved this state when the Universe was less than 2 billion years old.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s something only seen in the most massive, mature galaxies that are closer to us in space and time,\u201d said Dr. Ben Forrest, an astronomer at the University of California, Davis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis one in particular did not show any evidence of rotation, which was surprising and very interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Forrest and his colleagues in the MAGAZ3NE (Massive Ancient Galaxies at z>3 NEar-Infrared) survey had previously observed XMM-VID1-2075 with the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawai\u02bbi.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrevious MAGAZ3NE observations had confirmed this was one of the most massive galaxies in the early Universe, with already several times as many stars as our Milky Way, and also confirmed that it was no longer forming new stars, making it a compelling target for follow-up observations,\u201d Dr. Forrest said.<\/p>\n

The astronomers used the NASA\/ESA\/CSA James Webb Space Telescope to measure the relative movement of material inside XMM-VID1-2075 and two other galaxies of similar age.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis type of work has been done a lot with nearby galaxies because they\u2019re closer and larger and so you can do these kinds of studies from the ground, but it\u2019s very difficult to do with high redshift galaxies because they appear a lot smaller in the sky,\u201d Dr. Forrest said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWebb is really pushing the frontier for these kinds of studies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOf the three galaxies they sampled, one is clearly rotating, one is kind of messy, and one has no rotation but a lot of random motion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s consistent with some of the most massive galaxies in the local Universe, but it was a bit surprising to find it so early on.\u201d<\/p>\n

How did this galaxy become a slow rotator in less than 2 billion years?<\/p>\n

One possibility is that it is the result not of multiple mergers, but a single collision between two galaxies rotating pretty much in opposite directions. That idea is supported by the team\u2019s observations.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor this particular galaxy, we see a large excess of light off to the side,\u201d Dr. Forrest said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so that\u2019s suggestive of some other object which has come in and is interacting with the system and potentially changing its dynamics.\u201d<\/p>\n

The discovery is reported in a paper<\/a> in the journal Nature Astronomy.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

B. Forrest et al. A massive and evolved slow-rotating galaxy in the early Universe. Nat Astron, published online May 4, 2026; doi: 10.1038\/s41550-026-02855-0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In today\u2019s Universe, most galaxies are held together by orderly rotation. But among the largest, no-longer star-forming systems,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[77],"tags":[15441,9697,18,6145,7443,19,17,206229,1024,153706,133,206230,11186,5610,15450,206231],"class_list":["post-470055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-csa","tag-early-universe","tag-eire","tag-esa","tag-galaxy","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-magaz3ne","tag-nasa","tag-rotation","tag-science","tag-slow-rotator","tag-star","tag-universe","tag-webb","tag-xmm-vid1-2075"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116523805958540809","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}