The Hubble telescope of the National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) has discovered massive dead galaxies that had run out of cold hydrogen fuel for star formation, these galaxies were literally running on empty.
In a tweet, the NASA Hubble while sharing the pictures of galaxies wrote, “Hubble found galaxies running on empty! Astronomers discovered six massive, dead galaxies that had run out of the cold hydrogen gas needed to make stars.”
Earlier in 2021, the scientists who were studying the early galaxies were stunned when they discovered the six massive galaxies that seem to have died during the most active period of star birth in the universe. NASA Hubble telescope spied on the six galaxies and noted that they ran out of cold hydrogen gas while most of the other galaxies were producing new stars at a rapid pace.
The findings were published in Nature
NASA Hubble – Discovery of dead galaxies is an amazing science story
According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), when the universe was about 3 billion years old which is just 20% of its current age, it experienced the most prolific period of star birth in its history.
But when the Hubble Space Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Northern Chile looked towards the cosmic objects in this period, they found something very weird and odd: six early, massive, empty galaxies. These galaxies, without fuel for star formation, were running on empty.
What happenss to all the cold hydrogen gas in these galaxies?
Without the cold hydrogen gas which is essential to fuel stars and birth the new ones, the galaxies were essentially dead. They were also unable to rejuvenate, even if they have absorbed the gas clouds and the nearby smaller galaxies. However, as per the lead author of the study, why they died is still a mystery.
Kate Whitaker, the lead author of the recent study posited, “Did a supermassive black hole in the center of the galaxy turn on and heat up the gas?. If so, the gas could still be there, but now it is hot.
Or the gas could have been expelled and now it is being prevented from accreting back into the galaxy. Or whether the galaxy just used it all up and the supply is now cut off?
