Alaknanda Galaxy:
Researchers at National Centre for Radio Astrophysics – Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (NCRA–TIFR), Pune, have discovered a well-structured spiral galaxy named Alaknanda, dating back to just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang.
- Found using the NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), this finding challenges current models, which state that well-structured galaxies do not form so early in the universe’s history
- Alaknanda is located about 12 billion light-years away and shows a textbook spiral structure. It formed when the universe was only about 10% of its current age, roughly 1.5 billion years old.
- It has two clear spiral arms and a bright central bulge, strikingly similar to the Milky Way.
- Named after the Himalayan river Alaknanda, considered the sister river of Mandakini, which is also the Hindi name for the Milky Way.
- The name reflects its resemblance to a distant sister of the Milky Way.
- Early galaxies were expected to be chaotic, clumpy, hot, and unstable, but Alaknanda stands out as a mature and well-ordered spiral system.
- Its structure adds to growing evidence that the early universe was far more evolved than previously believed.
- The galaxy’s unexpected maturity suggests that complex galactic structures began forming much earlier than current models predict.
