Some galaxies should be much more active than they actually are . Among them was a population of massive galaxies in the very early universe , when the popular affair to do was to make a lot of principal . However , these wandflower were rather “ quiescent ” with little action run low on inside them . Astronomers have finally confirmed the reason why they were like that – they are simply running on empty .
The galaxies in the study , print in the journalNature , breathe the luminance we see between 10 and 12 billion twelvemonth ago . This was the era when most of the stars in the world form , the so - call peak of star - formation – and yet these quiescent galaxies are the exception .
These galaxies somehow went through their whole reserve of cold accelerator , the crucial fixings to make wizard . It might be counterintuitive , but clouds of flatulence need to be inhuman to turn into shiny raging stars . By being cold , the gas more well condenses and then collapses into a big gravitational Lucille Ball of stuff . But if the gas is too blistering , it spread out out . This at last lead the galaxies to stop producing new headliner .
“ The most massive galaxies in our universe formed incredibly too soon , just after the Big Bang hap , 14 billion long time ago , ” go generator Kate Whitaker , prof of astronomy at University of Massachusetts Amherst order in astatement . “ But for some reason , they have shut down . They ’re no longer take shape new star . ”
observation with the Hubble Space Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter / submillimeter Array ( ALMA ) identified six of these galaxies magnify by a phenomenon called gravitational lensing . A foreground wandflower cluster warp space - clock time so much that the lightness of these remote galaxies come through much exculpated . This allow for respectable watching , and the disclosure that these galax have run out of gas .
It is unreadable what happened to them . They get to their impressive size of it very chop-chop , and then either eat all the cold natural gas available or push the remaining gas away . It is also potential that something was stopping the Galax urceolata from getting “ refueled ” , so no more gun was falling in .
" Did a supermassive black-market muddle in the galaxy ’s center turn on and heat up all the gas pedal ? If so , the gas could still be there , but now it ’s hot . Or it could have been expel and now it ’s being prevented from accreting back onto the extragalactic nebula . Or did the galaxy just apply it all up , and the supply is cut off ? These are some of the open interrogation that we ’ll continue to explore with new watching down the road , " Whitakerpondered .
The study of dead galaxies has the apt backronym of REQUIEM , remain firm for answer QUIEscent Magnified Galaxies At High Redshift .
