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Astronomers observe distant galaxy dying out

 

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How does a galaxy? When the stars that live in them stop forming.

Astronomers were recently able to witness this rare event for the first time ever, using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) of telescopes in Chile.

They observed the images of the galaxy known as ID2299. The ID2299 galaxy is losing 10,000 suns-worth of gas per year. This means it is losing the fuel it needs to form stars.

However, it still continues to form stars at a rate much faster than our own Milky Way. This means its remaining gas will get used very quickly, making it shut down in just a few tens of million years.

Scientists say that it’s possible that this galaxy’s death was caused by a crash with another galaxy, which eventually merged to create ID2299.

ID2299 is so far away from us that its light takes some 9 billion years to reach us; we see it when the universe was just 4.5 billion years old.

 

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