Red And Dead - The Carbon Monoxide Future Of Galaxy ALESS65
Tuesday, July 8, 2014 - 18:10
in Astronomy & Space
Astronomers have studied the carbon monoxide in ALESS65, a galaxy over 12 billion light years away, and found that it's literally running out of gas. The future is not dark, it's 'red and dead'. ALESS65 was observed by the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in 2011 and is one of few known distant galaxies to contain carbon monoxide. While our galaxy, the Milky Way, has about 5 billion years before it runs out of fuel and becomes 'red and dead', ALESS65 is a gas guzzler and only has 10s of millions of years left – that is very rapid, in astronomical terms. Radio waves emitted from ALESS65 as observed by the Australia Telescope Compact Array. Credit: Huynh et al. read more