SPT0418-47 is a young and extremely distant

galaxy A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System. ...

, discovered in 2020, that is surprisingly similar to the

Milky Way The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye ...

. We see it as it was when the universe was only 1.4 billion years old. It is surprisingly non-chaotic and contradicts the theory that all galaxies in the early Universe were turbulent and unstable. It is located at a distance of about twelve billion light years from the Earth's home galaxy, the Milky Way. The circular image (on the left of the accompanying picture) is our distorted view of the galaxy; the distortion is due to the gravity of a galaxy (between the Earth and the galaxy SPT0418-47 and not visible in this image) which focuses the light from SPT0418-47 into a ring. Computer modelling can be used to undo the distortion, revealing the galaxy's true appearance: a rotating disk with central bulge (on the right of the accompanying picture).Science, page 751, August 14 2020, Volume 369, Issue 6505)

References

Galaxies Horologium (constellation) {{galaxy-stub