Rapid formation of new stars in distant galaxies

Rapid formation of new stars in distant galaxies

FPJ BureauUpdated: Friday, May 31, 2019, 09:39 PM IST
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Washington : Galaxies forming stars at extreme rates nine billion years ago were more efficient than average galaxies today, researchers have found, reports PTI.

The majority of stars have been believed to lie on a “main sequence,” where the larger a galaxy’s mass, the higher its efficiency to form new stars. However, every now and then a galaxy will display a burst of newly-formed stars that shine brighter than the rest.

A collision between two large galaxies is usually the cause of such starburst phases, where the cold gas residing in the giant molecular clouds becomes the fuel for sustaining such high rates of star formation. The question astronomers have been asking is whether such starbursts in the early universe were the result of having an overabundant gas supply, or whether galaxies converted gas more efficiently.

A new study led by John Silverman at the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the universe, studied carbon monoxide (CO) gas content in seven starburst galaxies far away from when the universe was a young four billion years old.

This was feasible by the advent of Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), located on a mountaintop plateau in Chile, which works in tandem to detect electromagnetic waves at a wavelength range in the millimeter (pivotal for studying molecular gas) and a sensitivity level that is just starting to be explored by astronomers today.

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