Astronomers of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst (USA) learned why some galaxies stopped being active at the very beginning of their formation. The cause of death may be the disappearance of cold gas. This is reported in an article published in the journal Nature.
The most massive galaxies in our universe were formed immediately after a large explosion, that is, 14 billion years ago, however, the processes of star formation in them ceased early for an unknown reason. Researchers used a Hubble Space Telescope to observe distant galaxies of 10-12 billion years in an ultraviolet and near infrared spectrum. They found the galaxies that were to be active, but did not really produce new stars.
Hubble data were combined with data obtained by ALMA radio telescope complex (Atacama Large Millimeter / Submillimeter Array), which allows you to detect tiny clusters of cold gas that feeds the processes of star formation. The early universe contained a lot of cold gas, but astronomers noticed in the centers of galaxies only trace quantities. The reason may be that during the first billion years of the existence of the Universe, these galaxies either spent all gas reserves, or threw it into an intergalactic environment. It is also possible to some unknown process that prevents the replenition of the “fuel” galaxies for star formation.
In the future, scientists plan to find out how compact the remaining gas and why it exists only in the center of Galaxik.