Spiral galaxies imaged by JWST that rotate in the same direction relative to the Milky Way (red) and in the opposite direction relative to the Milky Way (blue). The number of galaxies rotating in the opposite direction relative to the Milky Way as observe
Spiral galaxies imaged by JWST that rotate in the same direction relative to the Milky Way (red) and in the opposite direction relative to the Milky Way (blue). The number of galaxies rotating in the opposite direction relative to the Milky Way as observed from Earth is far higher. Shamir, Lior, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2025 under CC BY 4.0
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launched into orbit around the sun in December 2021. Since then, it has been studying the history of our universe. Now, images of deep space from JWST’s Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) have revealed something puzzling: most galaxies rotate in the same direction.
About two-thirds of the 263 galaxies studied in a paper published February 17 in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society rotate clockwise, while the other one-third rotate counterclockwise.
“The analysis of the galaxies was done by quantitative analysis of their shapes, but the difference is so obvious that any person looking at the image can see it," Lior Shamir, a computer scientist from Kansas State University and sole author of the study, says in a statement. "There is no need for special skills or knowledge to see that the numbers are different. With the power of the James Webb Space Telescope, anyone can see it.”
The galaxies identified as rotating in the opposite direction relative to the Milky Way.
The galaxies identified as rotating in the opposite direction relative to the Milky Way. Shamir, Lior, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2025 under CC BY 4.0
The problem is that astronomers have long posited that galaxies should be evenly split between rotating in one direction or the other, astronomer Dan Weisz from the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved with the study, wrote for Astronomy back in 2017. “This stems from the idea that we live in an ‘isotropic’ universe, which means that the universe looks roughly the same in every direction. By extension, galaxies shouldn’t have a preferred direction of spin from our perspective,” he added. According to Shamir, there are two strong potential explanations for this discrepancy.
One explanation is that the universe came into existence while in rotation. This theory would support what’s known as black hole cosmology: the hypothesis that our universe exists within a black hole that exists within another parent universe. In other words, black holes create universes within themselves, meaning that the black holes in our own universe also lead to other baby universes.
"A preferred axis in our universe, inherited by the axis of rotation of its parent black hole, might have influenced the rotation dynamics of galaxies, creating the observed clockwise-counterclockwise asymmetry,” Nikodem Poplawski, a theoretical physicist at the University of New Haven who was not involved in the study, tells Space.com’s Robert Lea. "The discovery by the JWST that galaxies rotate in a preferred direction would support the theory of black holes creating new universes, and I would be extremely excited if these findings are confirmed.”
The galaxies identified as rotating in the same direction relative to the Milky Way (counterclockwise).
The galaxies identified as rotating in the same direction relative to the Milky Way (counterclockwise). Shamir, Lior, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2025 under CC BY 4.0
Another possible explanation involves the Milky Way’s rotation. Due to an effect called the Doppler shift, astronomers expect galaxies rotating opposite to the Milky Way’s motion to appear brighter, which could explain their overrepresentation in telescopic surveys.
“If that is indeed the case, we will need to re-calibrate our distance measurements for the deep universe,” Shamir explains in the statement. "The re-calibration of distance measurements can also explain several other unsolved questions in cosmology such as the differences in the expansion rates of the universe and the large galaxies that according to the existing distance measurements are expected to be older than the universe itself.”
It remains to be seen whether further research will confirm black hole cosmology or that astronomers have been measuring the universe’s expansion incorrectly—or perhaps something else entirely.
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Margherita Bassi | READ MORE
Margherita Bassi is a freelance journalist and trilingual storyteller. Her work has appeared in publications including BBC Travel, Discover magazine, Live Science, Atlas Obscura and Hidden Compass.
Filed Under: Astronomy, Black Holes, James Webb Space Telescope, New Research, Outer Space