Curious layman Posted February 7, 2020 Share Posted February 7, 2020 Quote Burn bright; die young. Scientists are left scratching their heads after a hugely productive galaxy went dark without warning, according to a new study. The monstrous star system, known as XMM-2599, reportedly existed 12 billion years ago when the universe was a ripe young 1.8 billion years old, reports SciTech Daily. But researchers at the University Of California in Riverside are bewildered over how the “ultramassive galaxy” could suddenly die. The study was published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.(bottom link) https://nypost.com/2020/02/05/scientists-bewildered-after-monster-galaxy-dies-without-warning/amp/?utm_source=quora&utm_medium=referral https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ab5b9f Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuantumT Posted February 7, 2020 Share Posted February 7, 2020 Could this mean that the dimensionless constants were different in the early universe? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LaurieAG Posted February 8, 2020 Share Posted February 8, 2020 Here are several possibilities, there may be others:- 1/ The emitted photons from the galaxy sources were entirely blocked by something. 2/ The galaxy sources ceased emitting photons. 3/ The depth of field of the observation has moved out of the range to be able collect the emitted photons i.e. observer location has moved out of range. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mordred Posted February 11, 2020 Share Posted February 11, 2020 Here is the related arxiv article https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.10158 They give a few reasons in the article the most prominent being virial shocks preventing sufficient cooling of the plasma or the result of a dry merger between galaxies. On 2/7/2020 at 7:09 PM, QuantumT said: Could this mean that the dimensionless constants were different in the early universe? No we would likely be able to detect such through spectography Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strange Posted February 11, 2020 Share Posted February 11, 2020 Worth clarifying that when they say the galaxy has "died" and "gone dark", neither of those thngs are true. No (or very few) new stars are being formed. The galaxy is still there, still full of stars and still visible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bufofrog Posted February 11, 2020 Share Posted February 11, 2020 11 minutes ago, Strange said: Worth clarifying that when they say the galaxy has "died" and "gone dark", neither of those thngs are true. No (or very few) new stars are being formed. The galaxy is still there, still full of stars and still visible. Yeah, but "A Galaxy Died!" is a way better headline.🙄 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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