An international research team was able to find 6 huge galaxies completely devoid of cold hydrogen clouds responsible for the formation of new stars, and the strange thing is that these galaxies existed early in the history of the universe, that is, 3 billion years after its inception, at a time when it was assumed that All galaxies are active.
To reach these results - which were published in the journal Nature and announced by the US Space and Aviation Agency (NASA), which participated in the study in an official statement on September 22, the research team used data from the "Hubble" space telescope ( Hubble), and they also used the Atacama Large Millimeter / Submillimeter Observatory Array (ALMA).
According to the study, the Hubble telescope determined the location of the stars in the galaxies, while the "Alma" - which consists of an array of 66 radio monitors with a diameter of 12 meters and 7 meters - studied cold hydrogen clouds, and determined for astronomers where stars could form in the future if there was fuel Adequate.
The researchers used data from the Hale telescope and the ALMA array (Getty Images)
dead galaxies
Child stars arise in dense clouds of gas and dust that contain huge amounts of hydrogen that accumulate on each other over millions of years, so that the pressure and temperature in the center of this accumulated mass are sufficient, and a nuclear fusion reaction arises between hydrogen atoms, and the star begins its life, which may They last for several million or billions of years.
In general, there is no problem for there to be a dead galaxy in the astronomical sense, that is, it reaches a stage during which it has finished all its hydrogen in creating new stars, which is the final stage in the life of any galaxy, including our galaxy, the “Milky Way”, which It's already nearly finished with its hydrogen content.
But the strange thing - according to the study - is that these galaxies existed during only 3 billion years of the creation of the universe, and during this period the vast majority of galaxies were still in their childhood and abounding in hydrogen and new stars were born in them at higher rates than normal.
So far, there is no explanation for this strange situation, and the researchers hypothesize in their study that something may have happened and expelled hydrogen out of the galaxy, or perhaps the black hole in its center heated it up at a tremendous speed, so all the hydrogen was consumed and it was over.
According to the study, there are many open doors to questions about these six galaxies, and more observation and research is required in the future, in the hope that revealing their secret will one day help in achieving a better understanding of the evolution of galaxies in our vast universe.