Galaxies observed by JWST: those rotating in one direction are shown in red, while those rotating in the other direction are shown in blue. (Image credit: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2025))
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has certainly changed our understanding of the early universe since its launch, but its latest findings may leave astronomers scratching their heads. In fact, it could provide valuable clues about the birth of the universe, perhaps implying that everything we see around us is trapped inside a black hole.
The $10 billion telescope, which began observing the cosmos in the summer of 2022, has found that the vast majority of deep-space objects and early galaxies it has studied so far are rotating in the same direction. About two-thirds of them are rotating clockwise, while the remaining third are rotating counterclockwise.
In a random universe, scientists would expect 50% of galaxies to spin one way and the other 50% to spin the other way. This new study suggests there is a preferred direction of galactic rotation.
Data on 263 galaxies that exhibited this strange, coordinated cosmic dance were collected as part of the James Webb Telescope's Extended Deep Extragalactic Survey, known as JADES.
“It’s not yet clear what exactly is causing this, but there are two main possible explanations,” said lead researcher Lior Shamir, an assistant professor of computer science in the Carl R. Ice College of Engineering, in a statement. “One explanation is that the universe began with rotation. This explanation is consistent with theories like black hole cosmology, which proposes that the entire universe is part of a black hole.
“If the universe really did start out rotating, it would imply that existing theories about the cosmos are incomplete.”
Originated in a black hole?
Black hole cosmology, also known as “Schwarzschild cosmology”, suggests that our observable Universe may be part of a black hole located inside a larger parent universe.
The idea was first proposed by theoretical physicist Raj Kumar Pathria and mathematician I. J. Good. It involves the concept that the “Schwarzschild radius,” better known as the “event horizon” (the boundary from which nothing can escape, not even light), is also the horizon of the visible universe.
This also implies that each black hole in our universe could serve as an entrance to another “daughter universe.” These universes would be inaccessible to observation because they also lie outside the event horizon, a one-way point of no return for light, meaning that information could never pass from the interior of the black hole to an outside observer.
This theory is supported by Polish theoretical physicist Nikodem Poplawski of the University of New Haven.
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