NEWS ARCHIVECarbon monoxide predicts ‘red and dead’ future of gas guzzler galaxy
Astronomers have studied the carbon monoxide in a galaxy over 12 billion light years from Earth and discovered that it's running out of gas, quite literally, and headed for a 'red and dead' future. The research is reported in a paper published today in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
This galaxy was first spotted by the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in 2011, but has now been studied using the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA). The new research shows it is one of less than 20 galaxies at this distance that are known to contain carbon monoxide. "We're familiar with carbon monoxide here on Earth as a deadly gas that can cause suffocation, but in galaxies it plays an important role in the life cycle of stars," said Huynh. "Out of the galaxies that we know contain carbon monoxide, less than 20 are as far away from Earth as ALESS65. Out of the billions of galaxies out there, the detections are very rare!"
"All galaxies have a certain amount of fuel to make new stars," said Huynh. "Our galaxy, the Milky Way, has about five billion years before it runs out of fuel and becomes 'red and dead', but ALESS65 is a gas guzzler and only has tens of millions of years left – very fast in astronomical terms."
The researchers will now turn their attentions to the search for carbon monoxide in another galaxy near to ALESS65, named ALESS61. "Finding and studying carbon monoxide in more galaxies will tell us even more about how stars formed in the early days of the Universe and help solve the mystery of far away 'red and dead' galaxies" said Huynh.
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This research has been published in Huynh M. et al., 2014, "Detection of molecular gas in an ALMA [CII]-identified Submillimetre Galaxy at z=4.44", Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 443, p. L54-L58, published by Oxford University Press.
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