galaxy evolution tagged posts

Astronomers may have just found one of the missing links in galaxy evolution

An international team of astronomers led by UMass Amherst may have just found one of the missing links in galaxy evolution
Eighteen of the recently discovered dusty, star-forming galaxies (in red) formed almost 13 billion years ago. Credit: UMass Amherst

A team of 48 astronomers from 14 countries, led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has discovered a population of dusty, star-forming galaxies at the far edges of the universe that formed only a billion years after the Big Bang, believed to have occurred 13.7 billion years ago. The galaxies may represent a snapshot in the galactic life cycle, linking recently discovered ultradistant bright galaxies formed 13.3 billion years ago with early “quiescent” (dead) galaxies that stopped forming stars about two billion years after the Big Bang.

Challenging what we know about cosmos
The new discovery challenges current models of the universe, making the f...

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What makes Black Holes Grow and New Stars Form? Machine Learning helps Solve the Mystery

Intergalactic scene
A pair of disc galaxies in the late stages of a merger. Credit: NASA.

It takes more than a galaxy merger to make a black hole grow and new stars form: machine learning shows cold gas is needed too to initiate rapid growth — new research finds.

When they are active, supermassive black holes play a crucial role in the way galaxies evolve. Until now, growth was thought to be triggered by the violent collision of two galaxies followed by their merger, however new research led by the University of Bath suggests galaxy mergers alone are not enough to fuel a black hole — a reservoir of cold gas at the centre the host galaxy is needed too.

The new study, published this week in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society is believed to be the first to use machine learnin...

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New Treasure Trove of Globular Clusters holds Clues about Galaxy Evolution

Centaurus A is an elliptical galaxy located about 13 million light-years from Earth. This color composite image reveals the lobes and jets emanating from the active galaxy’s central black hole.ESO/WFI (Optical); MPIfR/ESO/APEX/A.Weiss et al. (Submillimetre); NASA/CXC/CfA/R.Kraft et al. (X-ray)

Using observations of Centaurus A, a nearby elliptical galaxy, obtained with the Gaia space telescope and ground-based instruments under the PISCeS survey, a team of astronomers presents an unprecedented number of globular cluster candidates in the outer regions of the galaxy. The findings provide astronomers with an even more detailed picture of galactic architecture and history of collisions and mergers.

A survey completed using a combination of ground and space-based telescopes yielded a ...

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Astronomers Team up to Create New Method to Understand Galaxy Evolution

S12, a post-starburst galaxy located nearly 500 million light-years away, is on the right. It looks like a jellyfish with a host of stars streaming out of the galaxy on one side.

A husband-and-wife team of astronomers established the star formation history of a post-starburst galaxy using its cluster population. A husband-and-wife team of astronomers at The University of Toledo joined forces for the first time in their scientific careers during the pandemic to develop a new method to look back in time and change the way we understand the history of galaxies.

Until now forging parallel but separate careers while juggling home life and carpooling to cross country meets, Dr. Rupali Chandar, professor of astronomy, and Dr. J.D...

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