Many galaxies have gases and dust which help in forming new stars. Such galaxies still have much life in them. However there are galaxies that are losing these, which would be the death of a galaxy. A galaxy killer is being investigated by scientists on this phenomenon.
There are galaxies dying in a much faster way than astronomers have anticipated. Astronomers are looking for what could possibly be doing this. Researchers from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) are looking for answers to this.
The researchers might have found the reason for why this is happening. Ram-pressure stripping in the universe seems to be more prevalent than what astronomers have earlier thought. This phenomenon drives gases away from galaxies, which then starves it from forming new stars. Gases and dust are important in forming new stars, and without them a galaxy would quickly die.
Leading the study is Toby Brown, Ph.D. candidate at ICRAR and Swinburne University of Technology. Brown has explained that galaxies have dark matter halos in them. These halos can be large, and some are even larger than the Milky Way. Galaxies could fall into the larger halos. If they do so, intergalactic plasma could move in and take out the gases from the galaxy.
The process by which this happens is the one that happens in ram-pressure stripping, according to the ICRAR site. Galaxies in clusters are affected by it, as noted by study co-author Barbara Catinella. These are some of the largest halos that could be found in the universe.
While such large clusters are mostly affected, smaller galactic groups are also being affected by ram-pressure stripping as well. Once that happens, the galaxy would then shut down and quickly die, as Science Daily reports. It is also a very fast process.
Galaxy strangulation is when the gas to make stars is slowly being used up by the stars that are forming. With ram-pressure stripping, the process can be as quick as a few million years as compared to strangulation. In the universe that is a fast pace, as Brown has observed.
There are galaxies that are losing gases very fast. A galaxy killer is being investigated by scientists. Scientists have also shown that a young star is actually much older.
