Researchers discover a dying galaxy that is bleeding 10,000 suns annually

European scientists made an extraordinary observation in space with an ESO telescope: the beginning of a galaxy's process of death. 

Everything is ephemeral: Even the huge accumulations of stars and planetary systems in the

universe

- better known as galaxies like our Milky Way - succumb to an aging process in a certain way ... until they actually

"die"

in the end, according to technical jargon

.

The reason: From a certain point in time they can no

longer form

new

stars

: their

death sentence

.

Since the life of a

sun

is also finite, the life of a

galaxy

goes out

together with the gradually dying light of its

stars

- at least that's the theory.

The problem: So far,

astronomers have been

groping

in the dark, which could be the trigger for a galaxy no longer being able to form stars.

Dying Galaxy: Until now, the process has never been observed

Although there is already evidence of active or inactive

galaxies

,

scientists

have not yet been able to observe

the actual beginning of the

dying process

, which has led to a number of theories.

For example, it has been suggested that the

gravitation of

extremely massive black holes in the center of the galaxies could blow out gases that are

necessary

for the formation of

stars

.

However, an accidental discovery with a telescope from the

European Southern Observatory (ESO)

brought

space researchers

to a new explanation.

Because: As a press release shows, a team of scientists from the British University of Durham and the French Saclay Research Center recently managed for the first time to “look at the beginning” of the

dying process

“in a

galaxy

far, far away

”.

The observed research object is a

galaxy

about nine billion light years away

, which is in a sense

dying

.

Its not very sonorous name:

"ID2299"

.

"This is the first time that we

have observed

a typical massive star-forming galaxy in the distant

universe

that is about to extinguish due to a tremendous cold gas ejection," Annagrazia Puglisi of Durham University is quoted in the press release.

The galaxy loses gas annually with the mass of about 10,000 suns

This "eject" shows up in the form of a huge

gas fountain

through which the

galaxy

an annual amount of about

10,000 suns

into the

All

overshoots - much as would a human blood and thus its lifeblood lose.

Metaphorically speaking, one could say that the

researchers

can see through the telescope how “ID2299” is bleeding to death.

The

scientists

suspect

a collision of two galaxies, which ultimately merged to form “

ID2299

”,

as the trigger for the great

loss of gas

.

"Our study suggests that gas ejections are generated by mergers and that winds and tidal tails can look very similar," study co-author Emanuele Daddi of CEA-Saclay is

quoted in

the

ESO

press release

.

Observation could lead to a completely new understanding of dying galaxies

So-called “tidal tails” are star and gas regions that

extend

from a

galaxy

into

space

and that, according to scientific understanding, are created by gravitational forces between neighboring galaxies.

However, as a result of the new observations, this understanding could now change.

For objects previously identified by researchers as “winds” of distant galaxies could therefore also be

tidal

tails that

eject

gas

.

"That could mean that we have

to revise

our understanding of how

galaxies

die," explains Emanuele Daddi in the press release.