Introducing the young Milky Ways

Astronomers discover ancestors of modern-day spiral galaxies

DENVER — Astronomers have found more evidence that a class of galaxies that existed in the early universe represent the ancestors of spiral galaxies like the modern-day Milky Way.

Eric Gawiser of Rutgers University in Piscataway, N.J., Lucia Guaita of Rutgers and the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile in Santiago, and their colleagues have discovered 400 galaxies about 10.5