Starlight robs galaxy of stellar ingredients
Newborn stars may prevent future generations from forming
Starlight may be robbing a distant galaxy of the ingredients needed to make future stars,
researchers report
in the Dec. 4
Nature
. A few billion suns’ worth of carbon monoxide is streaming out of SDSS J0905+57, a galaxy about 8 billion light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. The observations may help astronomers figure out what controls how quickly stars form and what happens to the gas that doesn’t end up in stars.