All articles tagged with #star formation quenching
New JWST observations of the merging galaxy CRISTAL-02 show an enormous, star-formation–driven outflow ejecting gas faster than it forms stars, potentially exhausting the galaxy’s fuel in under 100 million years and explaining why some early massive galaxies stopped forming stars, a mechanism that may be widespread across cosmic history and inform cosmological models.
Using JWST and ALMA, astronomers observed the merging galaxy CRISTAL-02 about 1 billion years after the Big Bang and detected a powerful, high-velocity outflow that ejects cold gas far from the galaxy. This wind can strip the material needed to form new stars, and if it continues, CRISTAL-02 could be dead in under 50 million years, helping explain why many massive early galaxies stopped forming stars so quickly. The findings, published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, suggest mergers and intense starbursts may have driven widespread galaxy-killing winds in the young universe.