Low-Spin Galaxies Form More Stars

Space





Photo credit:

The Whirlpool Galaxy (left) forms stars far more slowly than a clumpy galaxy (right). Red areas have the most recently formed stars. Dr. Danail Obreschkow, ICRAR. Image uses data from the Hubble Space Telescope

Astronomers have attributed the rapid star-forming behavior of a handful of galaxies to a lack of spin. Answering this one question, however, has stimulated many others, including how it is that these few galaxies have failed to gain as much angular momentum as the Milky Way.

Early galaxies formed stars at astonishing rates, something we can observe billions of light-years away, since we are seeing them as they were long ago. However, this process has slowed. In the case of the Milky Way, the rate of star formation is roughly one new star a year.