According to a new scientific study released by experts at the Indiana University, some massive galaxies may have formed relatively recently, just three to four billion years ago. Astronomical “dogma” holds that the most massive and luminescent galaxies in the Universe, such as our own Milky Way, were formed shortly after the Big Bang, at least 12 to 13 billion years ago. But the new research, conducted on a sample of 15 galaxies, shows that this knowledge may be wrong, as the observed targets exhibit the same type of luminescence and size signatures as older ones studied so far.

“These objects may represent a unique window on the process of galaxy formation, allowing us to study relatively nearby systems that are undergoing a phase in their evolution that is analogous to the types of events that, for most galaxies, typically occurred much earlier in the history of the Universe,” the principal investigator of the new study, UI expert John Salzer, who has also authored a scientific paper on the finds, said. The study was published in the April 10th issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

For these results, Salzer and his team analyzed data provided by the Kitt Peak National Observatory International Spectroscopic Survey (KISS), which looked at more than 2,400 star-forming galaxies all around us. Using an astronomical observation technique called spectroscopy, survey scientists managed to identify a number of 15 galaxies that exhibited very unusual traits, as far as age comparisons with their neighbors were concerned.

“The reason we found these types of galaxies has to do with the unique properties of the KISS survey method. Galaxies were selected via their strong emission lines, which is the only way to detect these specific galaxies,” the expert added. However, he conceded that there might also be other explanations for the unusual traits of the galaxies. Some say that their peculiar emission lines may be caused by a recently finished merger between smaller galaxies. This too would explain their type of luminescence, which is, according to existing astronomical knowledge, characteristic to young galaxies.

In order to find out which of the explanations is the correct one, Salzer intends to ask the NASA American space agency for some of the Hubble Space Telescope's observation time. Using the high-resolution instruments aboard the world's most famous observatory, the team hopes to be able to understand if the 15 formations are the result of galactic mergers, or if they, indeed, started forming eight to nine billion years after all the other ones did.