ALMA allows scientists to see the beginning of the extinction of the galaxy for the first time

It became known that astronomers from the University of Durham in the UK, using the ALMA observatory, for the first time managed to record how a distant galaxy ejected into outer space about half of the gas required for the formation of stars. The galaxy will "die" when the gas necessary for star formation dries up, scientists say. The results of their research were published in the thematic journal Nature Astronomy.

It was found that the amount of gas lost in one Earth year in galaxy ID2299 is about 10 thousand times the mass of the Sun. It is believed that a galaxy continues to "live" as long as there is enough gas in it to form stars, otherwise it dies out.

Light from galaxy ID2299 travels to Earth for about 9 billion years. Since the universe continued to expand during the movement of light to our planet, scientists now see the galaxy in the state in which it was 4.5 billion years after the Big Bang. The images, which were obtained using the ALMA observatory, show that 9 billion years ago, cold gas, necessary for the formation of new stars, was intensively leaking from ID2299 into outer space. The outflow velocity is equivalent to 10 thousand solar masses per year, which is approximately equal to 46% of all gas in the galaxy.

Despite the loss of gas, active star formation continued inside ID2299. This means that the gas not only leaked into intergalactic space but was also used to form stars. According to scientists, such processes can lead to the rapid extinction of the galaxy. This will happen in tens of millions of years, which is a small segment by the standards of the Universe.

Astronomers plan to continue observing the distant galaxy with ALMA instruments. Thanks to this, they expect to understand exactly how the release of gas into intergalactic space occurs, and also to study in more detail the process of extinction of galaxies.