Astronomers discover ‘Fossil Galaxy’ 3 billion light years

A galaxy that has remained unchanged for 7 billion years – a rarity in the universe – has been observed by astronomers, which offers a glimpse into cosmic history and adding an enigmatic collection of objects called relics or “fossil galaxies”.

These space -peculiarities are galaxies that, after a first phase of intense star formation, escape from their expected evolutionary path. While other galaxies expand and go together, the fossil galaxies remain virtually inactive. Just like Celestial Time Capsules, they offer a snapshot in the old universe and enable astronomers to investigate the mechanism of Galaxy Training.

The newly discovered fossil Galaxy-named Kids J0842+0059-I is about 3 billion light years of the earth, making it about 1 billion light years in Radius, both the farest and the first of its kind, the area of ​​the space closest to the earth. It was found by a team of astronomers led by the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (Inaf), with the help of high -resolution of the large binocular telescope in Arizona.

“Relic star systems, by chance, did not melt with any other galaxy and remained more or less intact through time,” said Crescenzo Tortora, a researcher at Inaf and first author of a study on the finding published on 31 May in the Journal monthly announcements of the Royal Astronomical Society. “These objects are very rare because, as time passes, the chance of merging with a different galaxy naturally increases.”

Very compact, very massive

Astronomers believe that the most massive galaxies form in two phases, according to study co -author Chiara Spiniello, a researcher at the University of Oxford in the UK.

“First of all, there is an early eruption of star formation, a very fast and violent activity,” she said. “We ultimately have something very compacts and small, the precursor of this relic.”

The second phase, she added, is a long -term process in which galaxies that are near the proximity to work, merge and eat each other, which causes a very dramatic change in their forms, sizes and star populations. “We define a remnant as an object that missed this second phase almost completely, after we formed at least 75% of its mass in the first phase,” Spiniello explained.

The meaningful characteristic of fossil galaxies is that they are very old, compact and closed, much more than our own Milky Way.

“They contain (billions) stars as massive as the sun and they do not form new stars – they are essentially nothing, and they are the fossil reports of the very old universe,” she said. “At that time the universe was really, very young. And then, for a number of reasons we honestly not yet understand, they did not register interaction. They did not melt with other systems. They evolved undisturbed, and they stayed as they were.”

Fossil galaxies are crucial because they are a direct link with the massive Milky -Road population that existed billions of years ago, said Michele Cappellari, a professor in astrophysics at the University of Oxford who was not involved in the study. “As ‘living fossils’, they have avoided chaotic mergers and growth that most other massive galaxies have experienced. By studying them, we enable us to reconstruct the circumstances of the universe in its infancy and understand the first outbursts of star formation,” he said.

What caused these galaxies to stop forming stars so abruptly is an important question, he added. “Proof of both local and (distant) observations suggests that feedback from super -massive black holes can be responsible,” said Cappellari. “These black holes can produce powerful winds that dispel or heat the gas in a galaxy, so that further star formation is prevented. However, this remains an active research area.”

An uncertain future

Scientists initially identified children J0842+0059 in 2018 using the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. That observation revealed that the galaxy was populated by very old stars, but only gave an estimate of its mass and size, so a more detailed observation was required to confirm that it was a remnant. The large binocular telescope used for this confirmation can display very sharp images because of the ability to compensate atmospheric turbulence, making it otherwise difficult for telescopes -based telescopes to concentrate on distant objects.

The newly found fossil Galaxy joins a group of only a handful of others who have been observed at the same detailed level, the most unspoilt – called NGC 1277 – was confirmed by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2018.

NGC 1277 and Kids J0842+0059 are very similar, but the latter is much further away from the earth. According to Spiniello, it fits almost perfectly in the definition of fossil galaxy.

“This is what we call an extreme relic,” she said, “because almost all, or 99.5% of his stars were formed incredibly early in the cosmic era and the Galaxy did absolutely nothing afterwards.”

The fossil galaxy has stars and planets, just like our own Milky Way, but it is much poet, Spiniello added. “There will be many more stars in a small, small volume, so it will be super busy,” she said. “And it will be much more difficult to find solar systems such as ours, with many planets around it, only because of the opportunities to get associated stars in the neighborhood.”

Kids J0842+0059 looks like observers like it did 3 billion years ago, because that is how long it takes before the light comes out of the Milky Way to reach the earth. Spiniello assumed that the relic will probably stay as it is forever, but scientists cannot be sure because they still do not know what it stops from communicating with other galaxies.

“There must be something that prevents them from merging, but without knowing anything, we can’t really predict what will happen in the future,” said Spiniello.

‘One in millions’

It is very difficult to identify fossil galaxies and to confirm their nature, partly because they are relatively rare and small compared to regular galaxies such as the Milky Way, according to Sébastien Comerón, an extragalactic astronomer at Universidad de la Laguna and the Instituto de Canariasa de Canariasa. The confirmation of a distant relic star system is a tribute to the search strategies used to identify these objects and modern instruments, he said.

“Relic star systems are mysterious,” added Comerón, who was not involved in the study, in an e -mail. “The fact that a few galaxies are nowadays untouched relics of the first major galaxies needs an explanation.”

Astronomers cannot say with certainty how rare relics are, but Spiniello estimates that there may be “one in millions” between all the galaxies in the universe. The Inspire project – which aims to find fossil galaxies and to catalog and produced the discovery of children J0842+0059 – has already identified a few dozen other candidates who are in the pipeline for further research, Spiniello said.

New instruments can make this search even more effective. Both Spiniello and Tortora are enthusiastic about Euclid, a telescope of the European space agency launched in 2023 with the aim of exploring dark matter and dark energy that will also be useful for observing fossil galaxies.

“Euclid will be transformational,” said Spiniello, “because instead of observing a single object at the same time, the configuration of the wide air examination will cover much more. The idea is to find all the galaxies in a piece of slit and then all to be isolated that Ultra Compact (Fosselie, you can actually be) being” actually galaxy) “”

Confirming Relikwie Galicy Kids J0842+0059 at such a distance is a remarkable achievement, and the future of this field is promising, Cappellari said in an e -mail. “With powerful new telescopes such as James Webb and Euclid (who produced its first images only a few months ago), and on the site with advanced adaptive optics, we can expect to find more of these remains and to study at even greater distances.”

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