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The Conversation
The Conversation
Themiya Nanayakkara, Lead Astronomer at the James Webb Australian Data Centre, Swinburne University of Technology

You’ve heard of the Big Bang. Now astronomers have discovered the Big Wheel – here’s why it’s significant

James Webb Big Bang JWST Nature Astronomy
The Big Wheel alongside some of its neighbours. Weichen Wang et al. (2025)

Deep observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have revealed an exceptionally large galaxy in the early universe. It’s a cosmic giant whose light has travelled over 12 billion years to reach us. We’ve dubbed it the Big Wheel, with our findings published today in Nature Astronomy.

This giant disk galaxy existed within the first two billion years after the Big Bang, meaning it formed when the universe was just 15% of its current age. It challenges what we know about how galaxies form.

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