Free Astronomy Magazine July-August 2020

52 JULY-AUGUST 2020 SPACE CHRONICLES Galaxy DLA0817g, nicknamed the Wolfe Disk after the late as- tronomer Arthur M. Wolfe, is the most distant rotating disk galaxy ever observed. The unparalleled power of ALMA made it possible to see this galaxy spinning at 170 miles (272 kilometers) per second, similar to our Milky Way. “While previous studies hinted at the existence of these early rotat- ing gas-rich disk galaxies, thanks to ALMA discovers massive rotating disk in early universe I n our 13.8 billion-year-old Uni- verse, most galaxies like our Milky Way form gradually, reaching their large mass relatively late. But a new discovery made with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) of a massive rotating disk galaxy, seen when the Universe was only ten percent of its current age, challenges the traditional models of galaxy formation. This research ap- peared in the journal Nature . by ALMAObservatory