Webb telescope found a Milky Way lookalike 12 billion light

Researchers have discovered a large, orderly spiral galaxy that formed soon after the Big Bang, when space was only about 1.5 billion years old.

The galaxy, named Alaknanda, appears in observations made by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope as part of major sky surveys. Because the Milky Way lookalike is seen at an extreme distance, its light has traveled for more than 12 billion years to reach Earth. Only recently has telescope technology become powerful enough to spot galaxies with this level of detail from such an early time.

For decades, astronomers believed galaxies in the early universe were too turbulent to settle into neat spiral shapes. Young stars and gas were thought to move chaotically, producing irregular clumps instead of smooth disks and arms. Hubble Space Telescope observa