- In a new study, published in Science, astronomers have tracked down how the fire of star formation burnt out within these galaxies. It appears that most of the time, the star formation is first quenched within the heart of the galaxy, and it’s not until a few billion years later that the outer regions run out of gas and stop producing stars.
- The light emitted from the 22 galaxies investigated in this study has taken more than 10 billion years to reach us. We are seeing these galaxies from a time when the universe was around three billion years old.
- This discovery that giant galaxies die from the inside-out is useful for astronomers trying to understand the mechanisms that promote and hinder star formation. And, ultimately, it’s about unravelling the history of the universe.
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