Nicknamed the Wolfe Disk after the late uranologist Arthur M. Wolfe , it rotates at 272 km per 2d ( 170 miles ) and weighs 72 billion times the mass of the Sun . The observations , conducted by the Atacama Large Millimeter / submillimeter Array ( ALMA ) , clash with traditional models that expect a massive disk galax such as DLA0817 g to be well - take form around 6 billion years after the Big Bang , which is not as early at this one .
“ While old studies hinted at the beingness of these early rotating gas - rich disk galaxies , thanks to ALMA we now have unambiguous evidence that they occur as early as 1.5 billion days after the Big Bang , ” lead source Marcel Neeleman , of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy , say in astatement .
Galaxies are believed to form through many merger of smaller beetleweed as well as by capturing red-hot clumps of gas pedal . The unconscious process is chaotic and guide to a messy galaxy that only settles to become a more relaxed , well - set up target after gazillion of years . intelligibly , another mechanics is necessary to explain the Wolfe Disk .
“ We consider the Wolfe Disk has maturate primarily through the steady accumulation of cold petrol , ” conscientious objector - author J. Xavier Prochaska , from the University of California , Santa Cruz , added . “ Still , one of the questions that rest is how to assemble such a large gas mass while maintaining a relatively unchanging , go around disk . ”
The extragalactic nebula is organise stars at a rate 10 times higher than our own Galax urceolata . This is among the highest during that epoch of the macrocosm , but far from the highest ever . This was estimated thanks to the use of the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array ( VLA ) and the NASA / ESA Hubble Space Telescope .
The extragalactic nebula was first discover in 2017 while the team was studying the light of a distant luminous quasi-stellar radio source , a special type of active galaxy . The emission from the quasar was altered by the large swarm of hydrogen surrounding the Wolfe Disk , leave for the discovery of a much fainter galaxy .
“ The fact that we detect the Wolfe Disk using this method , tells us that it belong to the normal population of galaxies present at early times , ” said Neeleman . “ When our new observance with ALMA amazingly prove that it is rotating , we realized that former rotating disc galaxies are not as rarefied as we thought and that there should be a lot more of them out there . ”
