As we build better detectors and more powerful telescopes, we’re getting confirmation of many of our theories on how the universe evolved from a soup of H, He, and trace elements to being the “full of galaxies full of stars surrounded by planets” universe we experience. The rate at which things form is one of the things we have constantly underestimated, and new research is showing us once again how much the universe out performed our imaginations in how rapidly it formed galaxies. New observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter Array have shown how 118 galaxies are spiraling and merging in the early universe, roughly 1 to 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang. These systems are detected in ionized carbon, which shines bright in the colors easily detected by ALMA. When these submillimeter images are combined with Data from Keck, Hubble, and Spitzer, astronomers can piece together the galaxy masses, and how coherently these systems are rotating, and where mergers are taking place. They found that at this early age of the cosmos, 15% of the galaxies were already well ordered and smoothly rotating like spiral galaxies. While the data isn’t good enough to see structures like spiral arms, it is remarkable to see what we do see. This work was done by the ALPINE collaboration led out of CalTech and is published in the Astrophysical Journal supplement series. 

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Rotating Galaxies Galore (CalTech)