The young universe was full of burnished young things , with new hotshot being bear at an unbelievable rate – much quicker than today . In the thick of this fervor , astronomer have discovered a galaxy that has already burn through all its fuel .
The discovery , reported inNature , is unexpected . These “ cherry nuggets ” were believed to have form at the early 3 billion years after the Big Bang , but this aim , known as ZF - COSMOS-20115 , was already ruby-red and dead when the population was just 1.65 billion age old .
And ZF - COSMOS-20115 is a monster . It has 300 billion stars , three times the amount regain in the Milky Way , but it is not spread out like our extragalactic nebula , over 100,000 lite - years . This object is incredibly dense , pack all these stars into a just a few thousand light - years ,
" This discovery sets a new phonograph record for the former monumental red beetleweed , " jumper cable source Professor Glazebrook , from Swinburne University , say in astatement . " It is an incredibly rare find that poses a new challenge to galaxy evolution models to accommodate the cosmos of such galaxies much in the first place in the Universe . "
The galax is found in an epoch when galaxies are seen to form one C of maven per twelvemonth , yet it is barely forming a virtuoso the mass of the Sun every five years , five times less than the Milky Way today . But the investigator guess that when it assembled , 950 million years after the Big Bang , it was grow 1,000 new star every yr .
" This huge galaxy formed like a cracker in less than 100 million long time , right at the start of cosmic story , " Professor Glazebrook sum up . " It quickly made a atrocious objective , then just as suddenly it quenched and turned itself off . As to how it did this , we can only speculate . This truehearted life history and death so betimes in the Universe is not predicted by our modern galaxy organisation theory . "
More observations are necessary to understand physical object like ZF - COSMOS-20115 . When the powerfulJames Webb Space Telescopelaunches in 2018 , it will be sensitive enough to line up a circumstances more of these early galaxies that lived fast and died young .
