This monster galaxy made stars hundreds of times faster than the Milk – Astronomy Magazine

Now, a team of astronomers has spotted one of these early galaxies in the act of churning out stars. Their observations capture the galaxy, which is about the size of the Milky Way, as it was about 1 billion years after the Big Bang. However, the galaxy is creating roughly 300 Suns worth of stars per year, while the Milky Way forms just one or two solar masses of stars each year.

The team says their find is something of a cosmic yeti because astronomers previously dismissed the idea that such monster early galaxies ever existed.

The researchers reported their find Tuesday in The Astrophysical Journal.

The researchers looked at other images of this patch of sky and discovered faint traces of the galaxy in various wavelengths of light. Those traces by themselves were too faint for anyone to be sure there was a galaxy there. But combined with the much clearer and brighter ALMA data, the researchers could be more confident that those traces of light came from the same galaxy. From the traces of light the researchers gathered, they were able to infer how fast the galaxy is building up its store of stars.

Because the researchers stumbled upon the galaxy by accident in a fairly small patch of sky, they believe these quickly star-forming galaxies arent rare.

The fact that weve been able to find one object and that its relatively common that makes me excited for future surveys, Williams said. Hopefully, we will find more, and then well be able to measure the formation histories of these things better with future data.

The newly discovered galaxy is part of the puzzle of how such massive galaxies formed so early in the universe. Before long, Williams hopes, astronomers will find more pieces of the puzzle and create a more complete picture of galaxies throughout the universes history.

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This monster galaxy made stars hundreds of times faster than the Milk - Astronomy Magazine