If the gas needed to make new stars is suddenly pushed out of a galaxy, the galaxy can die early, new research suggests.
Typically, as galaxies age, they run out of gas and other materials they need for growth, but a study published by the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society has found that young galaxies can be impetuous and shoot out their star-making gas right away, which would cause the galaxies to redden and die.
Ivy Wong, an astrophysicist from the University of Western Australia side of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) explained the difference between "red and dead" galaxies and "blue" galaxies to the Science X Network.
Blue galaxies are galaxies that are still actively producing stars. They can last two billion years or more, but sometimes, the good die young, and a galaxy can turn red before its one billionth birthday.
Wong and her team followed four galaxies that were each in a different stage of death. Most of the galaxies had released all their gas and stopped producing stars.
Wong told Science X that she had a hard time getting to use telescopes because other astronomers didn't think there would be anything to see if all the gas had been expelled. This worked in Wong's favor, since the more powerful telescopes were available for Wong's research.
So, why is gas being shot out of certain galaxies? "One possibility is that it could be blown out by the galaxy's supermassive black hole," Wong told Science X. "Another possibility is that the gas could be ripped out by a neighboring galaxy, although the galaxies in the pilot project are all isolated and don't appear to have others nearby."
"We selected four galaxies right at the time where this gas ejection should be occurring," Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Professor Kevin Schawinski told Science X. "It was amazing to see that this is exactly what happens!"
