Our Milky Way galaxy is old, there is not enough gas to create a new star

For the first time, scientists discovered evidence that our Milky Way galaxy stopped forming new stars after it completed the disk structure about 8 billion years ago and the cause is no longer available. enough air needed to make stars. Since then, they believe that the Milky Way is over the "middle age" age and may be getting old.

The lifespan of a galaxy is thought to depend on the amount of gas it possesses to form a new star. It is not clear, however, that the sudden loss of galaxies is caused by a supernova explosion, as the black hole at the center of it "eats" the raw material. . or is there any other reason why it does not continue to grow.

The Milky Way galaxy can stop growing even if it has a source of gas reserves to create stars.

To better understand the problem, Misha Haywood and colleagues at the Paris Observatory decided to take our own Milky Way galaxy. The team used a high-resolution signature spectrum to track the chemical composition of thousands of stars to determine their age, then synthesize the data obtained and recreate the history of the Milky galaxy. Way fully.

Finally, the team found that our galaxy's new star formation rate has been exponentially decreasing since 8-10 billion years ago. After that, it continued the process of making stars but at a much slower rate. Interestingly, this period also coincides with the Milky Way forming a disk-shaped structure with the star cluster centered in the center. In other words, the Milky Way can stop growing even if it has a source of gas reserves to make stars.

Haywood argues that the formation of a disk and block structure disrupts the development of the galaxy because the process will stir up the gas, making it too hot to form new stars. At the same time, he thinks that other spiral galaxies in the universe will "age" this way.

Another researcher, Katherine Alatalo, at the Carnegie Observatory in California, said: " The process of new star formation is a battle between gravity, creating chaos. The process of creating disks and masses of galaxies. we have caused the gas to become chaotic, preventing the formation of new stars from happening ". Recent research results have provided more evidence for the above argument, thereby enhancing the understanding of the formation and development of the universe, which is still full of mysteries for people.