By Ron Cowen
The Milky Way today is a spiral-shaped disk of swirling gas orbiting a central hub of stars—signs of a mature galaxy. Researchers have assumed that most younger galaxies are misshapen and full of chaotically moving gas.
Now, astronomers have identified a galaxy that had already begun to resemble the modern Milky Way when the universe was only 3 billion years old, one-fifth of its current age.