Last Updated on May 9, 2026 by Jaspreet Kaur
Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have found an old galaxy that doesn’t follow the usual rules of how galaxies form. The galaxy, known as XMM-VID1-2075 existed when the universe was then 2 billion years old. Even though it’s huge and mature it doesn’t spin much.
This surprised scientists because galaxies in the universe are expected to spin naturally as they form. The findings were published in Nature Astronomy by a team of researchers from University of California Davis.
Lead researcher Ben Forrest said the galaxy’s strange behavior challenges what we thought we knew about how big galaxies change over time.
Why Galaxies Spin
According to what we know about astronomy, galaxies form from clouds of gas that collapse under gravity. As the gas flows in, it starts to spin like water going down a drain. Over time this spinning motion creates galaxies with stars, gas and dust.
Most young galaxies we’ve seen in the early universe spin clearly. Some big galaxies close to Earth behave differently. They have stars moving in directions. These galaxies are called rotators.
Scientists think slow rotators form after galaxies merge times. When galaxies collide their spins can cancel each other out, reducing the spin.
This process usually takes a really long time. So astronomers didn’t expect to find a spinning galaxy so early in the universe’s history.
Looking Back in Time
The research team studied XMM-VID1-2075 as part of the MAGAZiNE survey. This survey looks at old galaxies in the early universe.
The galaxy had been observed before using the W. M. Keck Observatory. Scientists confirmed it had more stars than the Milky Way even though it existed soon after the Big Bang.
Researchers also found that the galaxy had stopped forming stars. This is unusual for such a time in the universe’s history.
To learn more the team used the James Webb Space Telescope. Its powerful infrared tools let astronomers study galaxies in great detail.
Pushing Webbs Limits
Using Webb astronomers looked at XMM-VID1-2075 and two other galaxies from the time.
The telescope let researchers measure how stars and gas moved in each galaxy. This is hard to do for objects. Nearby galaxies can be studied from Earth-based observatories.. Galaxies in the early universe are tiny and faint from our perspective. Webbs tools are changing that. The observations showed three galactic behaviors.
One galaxy spun clearly, another was chaotic and messy. Xmm-VID1-2075 didn’t spin much. Its stars moved randomly.
This motion is like the behavior of mature galaxies found in the modern universe, not young galaxies from the early universe.
A Cosmic Collision
Researchers are now trying to understand how such a big galaxy could lose its spin quickly.
One possible explanation is a galactic collision. Of needing many mergers over billions of years the galaxy may have formed through a single big collision between two galaxies spinning in opposite directions. Such an event could cancel out the spin. Create the random stellar movement we see today. The team found evidence supporting this idea.
Webb images showed a lot of light near the side of the galaxy. This suggests another object may be interacting with it. Scientists think this neighboring object could be disrupting the galaxy’s structure and changing its dynamics.
Testing Cosmic Theories
The discovery gives astronomers a way to test computer simulations of galaxy formation.
Some simulations predict that a few non-spinning galaxies should exist in the universe.. They are expected to be extremely rare. Finding XMM-VID1-2075 suggests these unusual galaxies may have formed earlier than scientists thought. Researchers are now searching for examples to see how common slow rotators were during the universe’s youth.
By comparing observations with theoretical models astronomers hope to understand how galaxies grow, merge and change over billions of years.
A New View of the Universe
The findings show how the James Webb Space Telescope is changing astronomy.
Since its launch Webb has revealed that the early universe was more complex and mature than scientists expected. Galaxies once thought impossible at early times are now being discovered regularly.
XMM-VID1-2075 adds another mystery to that growing list.
By behaving like a young spinning galaxy it already resembles the big slow-moving galaxies usually seen much later in cosmic history.
For astronomers, discoveries like this are exciting. They make scientists rethink what they thought they knew about how the universe developed after the Big Bang.
As Webb continues to look into space and further back in time researchers expect even more surprising discoveries, about the origins of galaxies and the evolution of the cosmos.