Monster galaxies gain weight by eating smaller neighbors
Friday, September 19, 2014 - 11:01
in Astronomy & Space
Massive galaxies in the universe have stopped making their own stars and are instead snacking on nearby galaxies. Astronomers looked at more than 22,000 galaxies and found that while smaller galaxies are very efficient at creating stars from gas, the most massive galaxies are much less efficient at star formation, producing hardly any new stars themselves, and instead grow by 'eating' other galaxies.