The oldest dead galaxy in the Universe has been found by astronomers with the help of recent observations acquired from theJames Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
This newly discovered dead galaxy, also known asJADES-GS-z7-01-QU, is said to have challenged the popular design of the early Universe, according to Space.
It also stopped creating stars more than 13 billion years ago, during a time when the Universe was only 700 million years old.
Despite being rich in dust and gas, which are needed for the formation of stars, astronomers are perplexed by the dead galaxy's apparent halt.
"The first few hundred million years of the universe was a very active phase, with lots of gas clouds collapsing to form new stars," Tobias Looser, lead author of the study from the University of Cambridge, said in a statement. "Galaxies need a rich supply of gas to form new stars, and the early Universe was like an all-you-can-eat buffet."
The dead galaxy had a speedy burst of star formation lasting between30 million to 90 million years, but it stopped doing sobetween 10 million and 20 million years, just before it was observed by the JWST, as per the data fromJWST Advanced Deep Survey (JADES).
Though, there have been many dead galaxies, which have been discovered to have formed no stars, butJADES-GS-z7-01-QU is the oldest dead galaxy found at only700 million years after the event of the Big Bang.
"Until now, to understand the early Universe, we've used models based on the modern universe," Roberto Maiolino, co-author of the study from the University of Cambridge, said in the statement. "But now that we can see so much further back in time, and observe that the star formation was quenched so rapidly in this galaxy, models based on the modern universe may need to be revisited."