![]() Radiation from the hot gas pumps extra energy into the rest of the galaxy, blowing away or heating up the remaining gas until the star-forming factory closes for good ( SN: 3/5/14). An actively feeding black hole can be seen from billions of light-years away and is known as a quasar. That black hole gobbles the gas, heating it white-hot. But at some point, something disrupts the cold star-forming fuel and sends it toward the supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s core. The stars form from pockets of cold gas that contract under their own gravity and ignite thermonuclear fusion in their centers. “This could give us a lot of insight into that process.”Īstronomers think galaxies typically start out making new stars with a passion. “How galaxies precisely die is an open question,” says astrophysicist Allison Kirkpatrick of the University of Kansas in Lawrence. Studying this galaxy and others like it will help astronomers figure out exactly how such shutdowns happen. But it also has an actively feeding supermassive black hole at its center that will bring star formation to a halt within a few hundred million years, astronomers reported January 11 at the virtual meeting of the American Astronomical Society. ![]() The galaxy, called CQ 4479, is still forming plenty of new stars. A distant galaxy has been caught in the act of shutting down. ![]()
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