Using the APEX telescope, a team of astronomers has discovered the strongest link found so far among the most powerful waves of star formation in the early universe and the most massive galaxies we observe TODAY 'hui. Galaxies, flourishing in spectacular wave’s formation stellar (Stellaria is a genus of annual or perennial herbaceous plants, the stars, of the family Caryophyllaceous. It includes about 90 species distributed worldwide.) in the Universe (Universe is called the set of all that exists, including all the people and things (including this one or not, as philosophies, immaterial things) and the laws that) important, have saw the birth of new stars suddenly stopped. Thus, it is now massive galaxies, but passive, composed of aging stars. Astronomers have also identified the likely culprit of the sudden stop waves of star formation: the emergence of supermassive black holes.

 

He astronomers combined observations (Observation is the act of careful monitoring of phenomena, without desire to change, with means of investigation and study ...) obtained with the camera (The term camera is from the Latin: room to view camera. It means a unit shooting movies, the cinema, television or video.) LABOCA installed on the telescope (a telescope (from the Greek tele means "far" and skopein meaning "look see") is an optical instrument that allows) 12-meter- diameter (in a circle or a sphere, the diameter is a line segment passing through the center and limited by the points of the circle or of the sphere.) Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) (1) operated by ESO with measurements made with the Very Large Telescope (VLT), the Spitzer Space Telescope (Spitzer Space Telescope is the largest infrared telescope launched by the NASA. These wavelengths can not be usefully observed from the ground, only an object outside the atmosphere, cryogenically cooled can ...) of NASA and others, to see how distant luminous galaxies are assembled in groups or clusters.

Most galaxies are closely gathered, the more halo dark matter (In astrophysics, dark matter (or dark matter) is the material apparently undetectable invoked to account for unexpected effects, especially on the ...) is massive (The word may be used as a solid) - the material (Matter is the substance that makes up any body having a tangible reality. The three most common states are solid, liquid, gaseous state. It takes up space and the amount of material ...) invisible which is the vast majority of the mass (mass is a fundamental property of matter that occurs both by the inertia of the body and gravitational interaction.) of a galaxy. The new results are the measures of this gathering the most accurate ever made for this type of galaxies.

The galaxies are so distant that it took about ten billion years for their light (light means electromagnetic waves visible to the human eye, that is to say, included in the wavelengths of 0, 38 to 0.78 micron (380 nm to 780 ...) to reach us, so we see them as they were there about ten billion years. (2) In these pictures of the early universe, the galaxies are in the process (in rail transport, a train consists of a series of vehicles moving along guides to transport passengers or goods from one point to another. These guides are the most ...) to produce the type of the most intense star formation known at this day (the day or the day is the interval between sunrise sunset, is the period between two nights, during which the sun's rays light up the sky. Its beginning (from midnight local time) and duration ...), called Starburst in English to express the importance of wave (A wave is an oscillatory motion of the surface of an ocean, sea or a lake. The waves are generated by the wind and have a peak-to-peak from a few centimeters to 34 meters (112 feet), ...) of star formation.

By measuring the mass of dark matter halos around galaxies and using computer simulations to study how these halos grow in time (Time is a concept developed to represent the variation of the world: the universe is never static, the component parts move, transform and ...), the astronomers found that distant galaxies at the rate of star formation unusually large (the "starburst galaxies") in the early universe eventually become giant elliptical galaxies - the most massive galaxies in the universe today.

 

"This is the first time we are able to show this clear link between the galaxies with the largest rate of star formation in the early universe and the most massive galaxies seen today," said Ryan Hickox (Dartmouth College, United States and Durham University, UK), the scientific (A scientist is someone who is dedicated to the study of a science or science and dedicated to the study of a field with the rigor and methods scientists.) team leader.

In addition, these new observations indicate that the waves of intense stellar formation in these distant galaxies only last 100 million years - a very short period on a cosmic scale - but in that short period, they are able to double the number (A number is a concept characterizing a unit, a collection of units or a fraction of a unit.) galaxies of stars. The sudden stop of this rapid growth is another episode in the history of galaxies that astronomers have not yet fully understood.

"We know that massive elliptical galaxies have stopped long ago to form stars in a rather sudden and they are now passive. And scientists have wondered what could be powerful enough to permanently stop these large waves of star formation in a galaxy whole, "said Julie Wardlow (University of California at Irvine, United States and Durham University, UK), a member of the team.

The results of this team provide a possible explanation: the history of the universe, galaxies with high star formation is collected in a manner very similar to quasars, indicating that they are in the same dark matter halos. Quasars are among the most energetic objects in the universe - galaxy of lights that emit intense radiation, powered by supermassive black holes at their center.

There is increasing evidence to suggest that intense star formation also powers the quasar (In astronomy, a quasar (for radiation source quasi-stellar, quasi-stellar English) is a source of electromagnetic energy, including light. Quasars visible from the Earth ...) providing an amount (the amount is a generic term of metrology (account, amount); a scalar, vector, number of objects or another way to name the value of a collection or group of things.) great matter to black hole (In astrophysics, a black hole is a massive object whose gravitational field is so intense that it prevents any form of matter or radiation to escape. Such objects emit no light and so are ...) Central.  The quasar in turn emits powerful bursts of energy (in common sense energy means anything that can do work, produce heat, light, produce a movement.) that d From what one thinks, hunt gases (At the microscopic level, a gas is described as a set of atoms or molecules very weakly bound and quasi-independent (for details, see real gases).) remaining in the galaxy - the raw material for new stars - and actually stopping the entire phase (phase A word can have several meanings, it is used in many areas and especially in physics) of star formation.

"In short, the glory days of intense star formation in galaxies also condemned by feeding the giant black holes they host at their center. Black Holes that will quickly remove or destroy the star-forming clouds," said David Alexander (Durham University, UK), a member of the team.