New observations appear to have undermined our leading theories of the universe — so claims Kansas State University computer scientist Lior Shamir, who has identified that far more spiral galaxies spin clockwise than counter-clockwise as seen from Earth. This is a near 50% asymmetry, visible to the naked eye. And it grows stronger the deeper into cosmic history we look. Under the cosmological principle, the century-old assumption that the universe looks the same from every vantage point, an observer anywhere should see a roughly even split. Shamir's data suggests otherwise, and the implications may require a whole new cosmological theory. Furthermore, the same systematic bias that could explain the spiral galaxy asymmetry may also be inflating the measurements behind two of cosmology's most stubborn open problems: dark energy, the unexplained force thought to be accelerating the universe's expansion, and the Hubble tension, the unresolved disagreement over how fast the universe is expanding.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is the most powerful astronomical imaging device ever built. With its ability to image the early universe, it provides observations that challenge our understanding of the cosmos, gradually leading to a new era in cosmology.

One of the unexpected observations made by JWST is the asymmetry between the number of galaxies that rotate in one direction and the number of galaxies that rotate in the opposite direction. That is, the number of galaxies imaged by JWST that rotate clockwise is not the same as the number of galaxies that rotate counterclockwise. That can be seen by observing spiral galaxies imaged by JWST deep field images.

Spiral galaxies such as our own Milky Way have arms, and the shape of these arms discloses the direction of rotation of the galaxy. JWST provides exceptionally sharp images of galaxies in the deep universe, and the highly detailed images allow us to identify their direction of rotation and count them. The JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) is the largest deep field taken by JWST. Surprisingly, it shows 158 galaxies that rotate clockwise, and just 105 galaxies that rotate counterclockwise. That exhibits a very substantial difference of nearly 50%.

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The recent tensions and observations that conflict with the standard cosmological theories, and even with themselves, reinforce the need to consider other explanations that are outside the standard cosmology.

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In fact, the observation of asymmetry between the number of galaxies that rotate in opposite directions was initially made before JWST was launched. Studies with ground-based telescopes using analysis of millions of galaxies showed a slight asymmetry of 1%-2%. But these observations were made by galaxies that are relatively close to Earth. JWST shows that the magnitude of the asymmetry grows as the galaxies are more distant from Earth. That is, in the early Universe most galaxies rotated in the same direction, and the directions of rotation have been becoming more chaotic as the Universe gets older. Using the power of JWST, the asymmetry between the number of galaxies rotating in opposite directions can be observed even by just looking at the image with the unaided human eye.