An international team of astronomers, using the James Webb Space Telescope, has discovered a supermassive spiral galaxy named Zhúlóng, the most distant such galaxy yet identified.
The galaxy, named after a mythical Chinese dragon, has distinct arms in which stars are actively forming. According to the study, the galaxy has a redshift of approximately 5.2—meaning the light seen by JWST was emitted over 12 billion years ago, according to their study. Its mass was calculated to be comparable to that of our galaxy, the Milky Way.
