In just over three years since its launch, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has made amazing discoveries about the universe.
Now, a new study has revealed a strange and unexpected pattern: most galaxies in the deep universe appear to rotate in the same direction.
Lior Shamir, a researcher from Kansas State University, analyzed images from the James Webb Space Telescope Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES).
He found that out of 263 galaxies observed, about two-thirds rotated in one direction, while only one-third rotated the other way.
This is surprising because, in a random universe, the number should be about equal.
“The difference is so clear that anyone looking at the images can see it,” Shamir said. “You don’t need special skills or scientific knowledge to notice it.”
This discovery raises big questions about our understanding of the universe. One possible explanation is that the universe itself was born spinning.
This idea aligns with a theory called “black hole cosmology,” which suggests that the entire universe might exist inside a black hole. If true, it would mean our current understanding of the cosmos is incomplete.
Another possible explanation is related to how we observe distant galaxies.
The Earth orbits the center of the Milky Way, and a phenomenon called the Doppler shift affects how we see light from distant galaxies.
Light from galaxies that rotate opposite to the Earth’s movement might appear brighter, making them easier to detect. This could be why there are more galaxies in one direction in the images.
If this explanation is correct, astronomers might need to rethink how they measure distances in the universe.
Current methods of measuring how far away galaxies are could be slightly off, which might help explain some other mysteries in cosmology—like why the universe seems to be expanding at different rates in different studies, or why some galaxies appear older than the universe itself.
The findings, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, suggest that there is still much to learn about the cosmos.
Whether the universe was born spinning or if our measurement techniques need adjustment, this discovery is a reminder that space still holds many mysteries waiting to be solved.
