Planetary science isn’t the only area of astronomy where we’re constantly working to add details. Galaxies — they also have ways of showing us new ways of behaving as they slowly evolve and die over the history of the universe.

And this death – by which we mean an end of star formation – is not a steady process.

New work published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and led by Ignacio Martín-Navarro, looked at 3,000 nearby galaxies with actively feeding black holes. These systems have bright cores that are illuminated by a hot disk of material infalling toward the black hole. And now we know, these systems often have bursts of star formation.

It had been thought that in the modern universe, these massive systems would be slowing down their star formation, but it now appears that an active black hole may coincide with a rejuvenation phase in star formation. According to a Royal Astronomical Society press release on this research: The team concluded that current AGN activity may be contributing to, but not causing, the observed quenching of star birth. The rejuvenation of galaxies with active nuclei may thus be the “last breaths” in the lives of galaxies before they completely stop forming new stars.

There is something sad but poetic about these systems having a last burst of star birth before they die. But that is more of a story for philosophers than scientists.

More Information

RAS press release

“Rejuvenation triggers nuclear activity in nearby galaxies,” Ignacio Martín-Navarro, Francesco Shankar, and Mar Mezcua, 2021 October 20, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters