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National Astronomical Observatory of Japan

Running Out of Gas: Gas Loss Puts Brakes on Stellar Baby Boom

| Science

Galaxy cluster XMMXCS J2215.9–1738 observed with ALMA and the Hubble Space Telescope. Gas rich galaxies detected with ALMA are shown in red and marked with circles. Most gas rich galaxies are located in the outer part, not the center, of the galaxy cluster. Download image (279KB)

Astronomers observed a galaxy cluster 9.4 billion light-years away using the ALMA radio telescope array and found evidence that hot gas strips away the cold gas in the member galaxies. Since cold gas is the material for forming new stars, removing the cold gas inhibits star formation. This result is key to understanding the declining birthrate of stars throughout the history of the Universe and the evolutionary process of galaxy clusters.

These observation results were published as Hayashi et al. “Evolutionary Phases of Gas-rich Galaxies in a Galaxy Cluster at z = 1.46” in the Astrophysical Journal Letters in May 2017.

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