02-05-2020, 03:07 AM
Early in the formation of the universe, an extremely large galaxy produced stars quickly, then stopped. Was this the first example of Neil Young’s observation “it’s better to burn out than to fade away?” Discovered by astronomers with the Keck Multi-Object Spectrograph on Mauna Kea. initial results are intriguing, and researchers have scheduled additional time on Keck for follow up studies.
"Even before the universe was 2 billion years old, XMM-2599 had already formed a mass of more than 300 billion suns, making it an ultramassive galaxy," ... "More remarkably, we show that XMM-2599 formed most of its stars in a huge frenzy when the universe was less than 1 billion years old, and then became inactive by the time the universe was only 1.8 billion years old."
The team used spectroscopic observations from the W. M. Keck Observatory's powerful Multi-Object Spectrograph for Infrared Exploration, or MOSFIRE, to make detailed measurements of XMM-2599 and precisely quantify its distance.
https://phys.org/news/2020-02-astronomer...early.html
"Even before the universe was 2 billion years old, XMM-2599 had already formed a mass of more than 300 billion suns, making it an ultramassive galaxy," ... "More remarkably, we show that XMM-2599 formed most of its stars in a huge frenzy when the universe was less than 1 billion years old, and then became inactive by the time the universe was only 1.8 billion years old."
The team used spectroscopic observations from the W. M. Keck Observatory's powerful Multi-Object Spectrograph for Infrared Exploration, or MOSFIRE, to make detailed measurements of XMM-2599 and precisely quantify its distance.
https://phys.org/news/2020-02-astronomer...early.html
"I'm at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you're right - have fun." - Keanu Reeves