A monster galaxy 12.4 billion light-years away from Earth has been forming stars a thousand times more rapidly than the Milky Way galaxy.
Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array or ALMA, astronomers were able to create the most detailed anatomy chart of COSMOS-AzTEC-1, an ancient monster galaxy first discovered in 2007.
An Unusual Monster
Monster Galaxies, also known as starburst galaxies, are galaxies that undergo an exceptionally high rate of stars. Previously observed monster galaxies typically form stars at an incredible rate of 100 times faster than the Milky Way. However, the COSMOS-AzTEC-1 defies all expectations.
In a press release published by ALMA on Thursday, Aug. 30, a team of scientists revealed that the molecular clouds in the monster galaxy are highly unstable, paving the way of the creation of stars at an incredible rate. Moreover, instead of just one, there are two large clouds of gas-generating stars several thousand light-years away from the center.
"In most distant starburst galaxies, stars are actively formed in the center," explained study co-author Ken-ichi Tadak of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. "So it is surprising to find off-center clouds."
The researchers used ALMA to observe the distribution and motion of the gas within the monster galaxy. They were also able to obtain the highest resolution and most detailed map of the molecular gas of a distant monster galaxy ever made.
Unstoppable Monster
Astronomers also described the COSMOS-AzTEC-1 as an "unstoppable monster" exactly because of its instability.
In other galaxies, the inward gravity and outward pressure balance, the clouds that eventually collapse and form stars. When a star reaches the end of its life, it explodes and once again pushes the gas outward. This process slows down the pace of star birth.
However, within the monster galaxy billions of light-years away, gravity is winning. Gasses collapse into stars without pressure pushing outward to slow it down.
Astronomers estimate that the gas in COSMOS-AzTEC-1 will be consumed within 100 million years or 10 times faster than in other galaxies.
The discovery was published in the journal Nature.
Why Is It Significant?
Experts shave no definitive explanation on why COSMOS-AzTEC-1 is so unstable. They theorize that its current state might have been caused by galaxy collision that transported gas into a small area and ignited the generation of stars. The monster galaxy, they said, could unveil a link between galaxy collisions and monster galaxies.
Astronomer and study co-author Min Yun also said that the unstoppable giant gives a look into the early universe.
"How these galaxies have been able to amass such a large quantity of gas in the first place and then essentially turn the entire gas reserve into stars in the blink of an eye, cosmologically speaking, was a complete unknown question about which we could only speculate," Yun explained. "We have the first answers now."
