For the first time ever, astronomers saw a very distant galaxy that began to die in a potentially large breakthrough, according to CNN.
Known as ID2299, the extinction of the galaxies was likely caused by a collision with another galaxy, which eventually merged to create ID2299, the study reported.
The telling evidence that a collision may have led to a loss of gas is a tidal tail, which is a long stream of gas and stars extending into space after two galaxies collide in a collision, CNN said with reference to the study.
Scientists observed the galaxy pushing out almost half of the gas it uses to form stars, losing about 1
The study, led by Annagrazia Puglisi, a senior researcher and postdoctoral research assistant at Durham University in the UK and the Saclay Nuclear Research Center in France, was published Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy.
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“Our study suggests that gas emissions can be produced by mergers, and that wind and tidal tails can seem very similar,” said Emanuele Daddi, study author and astronomer at the Saclay Nuclear Research Center in France. “This may lead us to revise our understanding of how galaxies ‘die’.”
Astronomers captured this rare observation using the Atacama Large Millimeter / submillimeter Array of Telescopes in Chile.
According to the study, the light from this galaxy has taken about nine billion years to reach Earth, which means astronomers are observing what it looked like when the universe was only 4.5 billion years old – knowing that it is now 14 billion years old.
