They burned the candles of their lives from both ends and then “died” young. These are six ancient and massive galaxies that astronomers describe today. They first made a lot of stars in a short period of time. Then the fuel ran out. They had to run empty.
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[EN VIDÉO] Radio astronomy surprises distant galaxies that give birth to stars Thanks to the International Low Frequency Array (LOFAR), a large network of 70,000 radio telescopes spread across Europe, astronomers have obtained breathtaking images of the youth of our universe. Tens of thousands of galaxies were captured as they formed stars. This video suggests flying over a part of the sky that has been studied. © Jurgen de Jong, University of Leiden
Until today, we have Universe manufactures stars Daily. But when he was only three billion years old – about 20% of his current age – he lived through the field’s most prolific period in all of its history. However, by inverting a file Hubble’s spatial telescope (NASA) and ALMA, Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Antenna Array, for objects dating from this period, researchers I just made an amazing discovery. Six massive galaxies lack the extensionhydrogen necessary to make stars.
“We thought that at that time all galaxies formed a lot of stars. The largest ancient galaxies in the universe were made to slow their rate of star formation after only a few billion years. the great explosion. But our work shows that, in fact, these galaxies haven’t really slowed down. They literally worked empty.”Kate Whitaker, an astronomer at the University of Massachusetts (US), said in a press release.
It was a combination of observational techniques that enabled the researchers to make the discovery. with the Hubble’s spatial telescopeThey were able to locate stars in galaxies and thus places star formation Old. Together with ALMA, they were able to detect traces of cold hydrogen that indicate where stars may form in the future. Finally thanks to the effect gravity lens produced by Intergalactic Mistresses Huge in the foreground and width a light swelled in everything wavelengths and one Precision A space like no other, they were able to study the details of these six mysterious galaxies.
Hydrogen-deficient galaxies
“Galaxies that don’t make many stars come out very quickly and are difficult for us to observe. The effect of gravitational lensing allows us to study them anyway”Justin Spilker, a researcher at the University of Texas (USA). To understand that these six galaxies did not stop forming stars after a sudden inefficiency in hydrogen conversion. It’s because of the depletion of cold gas tanks.
How do ? The Astronomy scientists You still ignore it. maybe because ofenergy inject it black holes supermassive, which raised the temperature of all the gases in these galaxies. Perhaps also because the supply of cold gas to these galaxies was suddenly cut off. But anyway, these six galaxies seem unable to fill their tanks with fuel, and thus are unable to restart the star-making engine.
There is still much to learn…
“We still have a lot to learn about why the most massive galaxies formed so early in the universe and why they stopped their star formation when they had so much cold gas beforehand.Kate Whitaker explained. The simple fact that these massive monsters in the universe formed 100 billion stars in just a billion years and then suddenly stopped their star formation is a mystery we all would like to solve and we have our first clue here.
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