On the edge of the universe, an unusually rapidly formed galaxy was found.

Photos of the galaxy A1689-zD1, obtained by adding images at different wavelengths. Photo: NASA; ESA; L. Bradley (Johns Hopkins University); R. Bouwens (University of California, Santa Cruz); H. Ford (Johns Hopkins University); and G. Illingworth (University of California, Santa Cruz)



Scientists from the University of Copenhagen discovered one of the oldest galaxies A1689-zD1, whose age is 12.8 billion years. This means that it was formed just 700 million years after the big bang. However, the composition of the galaxy does not coincide with the fact that scientists expected to meet in it.



So far, scientists managed to look due to the effect of a gravitational lens - the light from the galaxy was focused by the massive galactic cluster Abell 1689, located at a distance of 2.2 billion light years in the constellation Virgo. Due to this, the light from the galaxy was amplified ninefold, which made it possible to view it with a telescope.



The data obtained surprised scientists. In early formed galaxies there should not be elements with large mass numbers. These elements are formed gradually during the evolution of stars, and are found in abundance in the later formations. But the galaxy A1689-zD1 is rich in heavy metals and it has about the same ratio of dust and gas as our Milky Way. It turns out that in this galaxy, star formation was unusually fast.

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The infinite universe throws endless questions for astrophysicists. Most recently, a very old quasar (a massive black hole surrounded by a disk of stellar matter) was discovered , which by all accounts should not have been formed so quickly.