If we draw an analogy with humans, then the galaxy looks like an adult, when in fact it should be a five-year-old child.
Scientists from Cardiff University have studied the galaxy ALESS 073.1 using the Atacama telescope. They were able to see it almost immediately after its inception - just 1.2 billion years after the Big Bang. This is not much for space objects.
The galaxy seemed very strange to them. A massive bulge, a regular rotating disk and possibly spiral arms already existed in it when the universe was only 10% of the current age, scientists note. All of these elements were supposed to appear much later, so ALESS 073.1 made them wonder how the galaxy could grow so quickly at all.
Early galaxies are generally considered turbulent and chaotic, and lack regular, well-organized structures such as spiral arms, for example. These arms are waves of increased density of matter that revolve around the center of the galaxy. Much of this is made up of dust and gas, young stars, and many star clusters.
Scientists are still at a loss to give an answer as to why a young galaxy looks mature. They do not exclude that as a result of new studies it will be revealed that the theory of the formation of galaxies will have to be corrected. It may turn out that galaxies are evolving much faster than previously thought.