Overview
- Webb mapped the internal motions of three massive early galaxies and confirmed that XMM-VID1-2075 shows no rotation.
- The galaxy is several times the Milky Way’s mass and has already stopped forming stars despite existing only about 1.8 billion years after the Big Bang.
- Astronomers classify it as a slow rotator, which means its stars move in many directions instead of circling a shared axis.
- The team suggests a single head-on collision between two counter-rotating galaxies could have erased its spin, with off-center light hinting at a recent interaction.
- Many simulations predict such non-rotating giants should be rare this early, so larger JWST surveys will measure how common they are and may force updates to merger and quenching timelines.