Produced by: Mohsin Shaikh
Twelve billion years ago, the universe was barely a billion years old—yet Zhúlóng looked like a cosmic adult. This grand-design spiral shouldn't exist that early, but here it is, rewriting the rules.
Spirals that well-defined were thought to emerge much later. Zhúlóng, with its elegant arms and bulging core, is a mature galaxy in an infant universe—and a problem for current models.
It's the size of the Milky Way, shaped like it, and just as massive—but Zhúlóng formed over 12 billion years ago. Astronomers are calling it a “ghost twin” from the universe’s childhood.
Galactic disks aren’t supposed to settle this early. Yet Zhúlóng’s star-forming disk and classical bulge say otherwise. The universe, it seems, was in a rush to build complexity.
If spiral structure formed this fast, dark matter halos might have played a more aggressive role. Zhúlóng could force scientists to rethink how cosmic scaffolding shaped galaxies.
Once churning out stars at up to 155 suns per year, Zhúlóng is now slowing down. That shift from starburst to stability hints at early feedback cycles we didn’t think were possible this soon.
Most galaxy simulations can’t produce something like Zhúlóng this early. Its existence challenges the fidelity of leading cosmological models—and raises questions about what we’ve missed.
The early universe was supposed to be chaotic and turbulent. But Zhúlóng’s order, symmetry, and scale suggest galaxies weren’t just forming—they were thriving with structure.
Zhúlóng forces a rewrite of the cosmic timeline. Galaxies may have reached maturity 800 million years post-Big Bang—ten times faster than some theories allowed.