An international team led by Cambridge University studied this galaxy, which formed two billion years after the Big Bang, with the Webb Telescope.
This galaxy, which has a supermassive black hole at its center, was in a “quenched” state, meaning that new star formation had largely stopped.
It was discovered that the black hole was throwing gas out of the galaxy at high speed, which stopped the formation of new stars.
“Based on our previous observations, we knew that this galaxy had stopped forming stars and we predicted that it was associated with a black hole. But we didn’t clarify this relationship until Webb,” said Dr. Francesco D’Eugenio, co-leader of the research team.
This galaxy is a large galaxy whose official name is GS-10578 but has been nicknamed “Pablo’s Galaxy” after the observatory scientist Pablo.
Most of the stars in this galaxy, which has a mass of approximately 200 billion times that of the Sun, formed between 12.5 and 11.5 billion years ago.
GAS FLOW DUE TO THE EFFECT OF A BLACK HOLE
“It’s interesting to see such a large ‘dead’ galaxy so early in the Universe. The process that stopped star formation must have happened quickly,” said Professor Roberto Maiolino, another co-author of the study.
Observations made with the Webb Telescope showed that the galaxy is expelling large amounts of gas at a speed of a thousand kilometers per second.
This speed allows the gas to escape the gravity of the galaxy.
THE BLACK HOLE THAT STOPS STAR FORMATION
The team found that the black hole was ejecting large amounts of gas out of the galaxy, which was preventing new stars from forming.
“This is the black hole that is killing the galaxy. It is cutting off the ‘food’ that the galaxy needs and preventing star formation,” D’Eugenio said.
This new discovery has made the effect of black holes on galaxies clearer, while the scientific community has taken a step forward in understanding how black holes stop star formation in galaxies.
Researchers expect new observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) to clarify whether the galaxy still hides gas needed for star formation and what effect the supermassive black hole has on the galaxy’s surroundings.
