A Milky Way-like barred spiral galaxy at a redshift of 3

Luca Costantin (), Pablo G. Pérez-González, Yuchen Guo, Chiara Buttitta, Shardha Jogee, Micaela B. Bagley, Guillermo Barro, Jeyhan S. Kartaltepe, Anton M. Koekemoer, Cristina Cabello, Enrico Maria Corsini, Jairo Méndez-Abreu, Alexander de la Vega, Kartheik G. Iyer, Laura Bisigello, Yingjie Cheng, Lorenzo Morelli, Pablo Arrabal Haro, Fernando Buitrago, M. C. Cooper, Avishai Dekel, Mark Dickinson, Steven L. Finkelstein, Mauro Giavalisco, Benne W. Holwerda, Marc Huertas-Company, Ray A. Lucas, Casey Papovich, Nor Pirzkal, Lise-Marie Seillé, Jesús Vega-Ferrero, Stijn Wuyts and L. Y. Aaron Yung
Additional contact information
Luca Costantin: Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), INTA-CSIC
Pablo G. Pérez-González: Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), INTA-CSIC
Yuchen Guo: The University of Texas at Austin
Chiara Buttitta: INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte
Shardha Jogee: The University of Texas at Austin
Micaela B. Bagley: The University of Texas at Austin
Guillermo Barro: University of the Pacific
Jeyhan S. Kartaltepe: Rochester Institute of Technology
Anton M. Koekemoer: Space Telescope Science Institute
Cristina Cabello: Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Enrico Maria Corsini: Università di Padova
Jairo Méndez-Abreu: Universidad de La Laguna
Alexander de la Vega: University of California
Kartheik G. Iyer: Columbia University
Laura Bisigello: Università di Padova
Yingjie Cheng: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Lorenzo Morelli: Universidad de Atacama
Pablo Arrabal Haro: NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory
Fernando Buitrago: Universidad de Valladolid
M. C. Cooper: University of California
Avishai Dekel: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Mark Dickinson: NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory
Steven L. Finkelstein: The University of Texas at Austin
Mauro Giavalisco: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Benne W. Holwerda: University of Louisville
Marc Huertas-Company: Universidad de La Laguna
Ray A. Lucas: Space Telescope Science Institute
Casey Papovich: Texas A&M University
Nor Pirzkal: ESA/AURA Space Telescope Science Institute
Lise-Marie Seillé: Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, CNES, LAM
Jesús Vega-Ferrero: Universidad de Valladolid
Stijn Wuyts: University of Bath, Claverton Down
L. Y. Aaron Yung: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Nature, 2023, vol. 623, issue 7987, 499-501

Abstract: Abstract The majority of massive disk galaxies in the local Universe show a stellar barred structure in their central regions, including our Milky Way1,2. Bars are supposed to develop in dynamically cold stellar disks at low redshift, as the strong gas turbulence typical of disk galaxies at high redshift suppresses or delays bar formation3,4. Moreover, simulations predict bars to be almost absent beyond z = 1.5 in the progenitors of Milky Way-like galaxies5,6. Here we report observations of ceers-2112, a barred spiral galaxy at redshift zphot ≈ 3, which was already mature when the Universe was only 2 Gyr old. The stellar mass (M★ = 3.9 × 109 M⊙) and barred morphology mean that ceers-2112 can be considered a progenitor of the Milky Way7–9, in terms of both structure and mass-assembly history in the first 2 Gyr of the Universe, and was the closest in mass in the first 4 Gyr. We infer that baryons in galaxies could have already dominated over dark matter at z ≈ 3, that high-redshift bars could form in approximately 400 Myr and that dynamically cold stellar disks could have been in place by redshift z = 4–5 (more than 12 Gyrs ago)10,11.

Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06636-x

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