James Webb Finds Ancient Spiral Galaxy 11.5 Billion Years Old

A galaxy that looks remarkably like our own Milky Way was already spinning through space when the universe was barely out of its infancy.

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have identified COSMOS-74706, a barred spiral galaxy that existed 11.5 billion years ago. That means this cosmic beauty was already forming its distinctive shape just 2 billion years after the Big Bang.

Daniel Ivanov, a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh, led the research team that made the discovery. What makes this galaxy special isn't just its age but its structure.

At its center sits a stellar bar, a bright line of densely packed stars and gas stretching across the galaxy's middle. Our own Milky Way has one too, but finding such a mature feature this early in cosmic history surprised researchers.

"This galaxy was developing bars 2 billion years after the birth of the universe," Ivanov said when presenting the findings at the American Astronomical Society meeting.

Stellar bars aren't just pretty patterns. They act like cosmic conveyor belts, channeling gas from the outer edges of a galaxy toward its center, where they can feed supermassive black holes and shape how stars form throughout the galaxy.

What sets this discovery apart from earlier claims is the precision. Other teams have reported possible barred galaxies from even earlier times, but those relied on less reliable measurements. COSMOS-74706 was confirmed using spectroscopy, which gives astronomers a clearer picture of how far away and how old an object really is.

Why This Inspires

This discovery reminds us that the universe has been creating breathtaking structures far longer than we imagined. Computer simulations suggested bars could form this early, but seeing one confirmed in real observations brings those theories to life.

The James Webb Space Telescope continues to reveal that galaxies grew up faster and became more complex earlier than scientists expected. Each discovery like COSMOS-74706 helps researchers understand the timeline of cosmic evolution and how structures like our own galaxy came to be.

While barred spiral galaxies weren't expected to be common this early in the universe's history, finding one opens new questions about how many more might be waiting to be discovered. As Ivanov noted, it helps scientists constrain the timescales of bar formation and adds another piece to the puzzle of how the universe evolved.

The universe was building architectural marvels when it was still in its cosmic childhood, and we're only just beginning to see them clearly.