An international team led by the University of Geneva (UNIGE) has identified the most distant spiral galaxy candidate discovered to date—an enormous, well-structured system that existed just one billion years after the Big Bang. Using observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), researchers found that this ancient galaxy, named Zhúlóng, already exhibited the hallmarks of a mature spiral galaxy, including a central bulge, a vast star-forming disk, and clearly defined spiral arms.
The findings, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, challenge long-standing theories that massive spiral galaxies like the Milky Way take billions of years to evolve. Instead, this discovery points to a much faster and more complex process of galactic formation in the early universe.
Until now, astronomers believed that galaxies during the universe’s first billion years were small, disorganized, and irregular in structure. However, JWST’s powerful infrared vision is painting a very different picture—revealing surprisingly massive and well-formed galaxies much earlier than previously thought.
Zhúlóng, observed at a redshift of 5.2, dates to just 1 billion years post-Big Bang. Despite this early cosmic age, it displays a structure strikingly similar to that of the Milky Way.
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“We named this galaxy Zhúlóng, or ‘Torch Dragon,’ after a mythological figure in Chinese legend who brings day and night—symbolizing cosmic light and time,” explained Dr. Mengyuan Xiao, a postdoctoral researcher at UNIGE and lead author of the study. “What’s remarkable is how much Zhúlóng resembles the Milky Way in size, shape, and mass.”
With a stellar disk extending over 60,000 light-years and containing more than 100 billion solar masses in stars, Zhúlóng stands as one of the most compelling Milky Way analogs ever found at such a formative stage of the universe.
This surprising find was made through the JWST’s PANORAMIC survey (GO-2514), a wide-field extragalactic imaging program co-led by Christina Williams of NOIRLab and Pascal Oesch of UNIGE. PANORAMIC takes advantage of JWST’s "pure parallel" observation mode, capturing deep-space images while the telescope’s main instrument is pointed elsewhere—dramatically increasing the survey’s efficiency.
“This strategy allows us to scan large regions of the sky, which is key to spotting extremely rare, massive galaxies,” said Dr. Williams, principal investigator of the PANORAMIC program. “Zhúlóng is a great example of the rare discoveries this technique makes possible.”
Previously, spiral galaxies were believed to form slowly as smaller galaxies merged over time. The emergence of such a massive and structured spiral galaxy so early in cosmic history forces astronomers to rethink current models of galaxy formation and evolution.
“This discovery is one more example of how JWST is reshaping our understanding of the universe,” said Prof. Pascal Oesch, co-lead of the PANORAMIC program. “It shows that large, organized galaxies appeared much earlier than we anticipated.”
Future observations with JWST and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) will help confirm Zhúlóng’s properties and shed light on its formation history. As more wide-area surveys continue, astronomers expect to uncover additional early spirals—offering vital clues into how galaxies like our own came to be.
