James Webb has discovered a galaxy that was extinguished by a supermassive black hole that turned into a quasar

Scientists have found a galaxy where star formation has stopped. The James Webb Space Telescope helped.

Here's What We Know

GS-9209 is the oldest known extinct galaxy. Nearly all of its stars appeared between 600 million and 800 million years after the Big Bang. However, star formation then suddenly stopped.

Over 200 million years, GS-9209 was able to accumulate the mass of 40 billion suns, the mass of the Milky Way. Scientists believe the sudden cessation of star formation may be due to the behaviour of a supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy.

According to astronomers at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, the black hole has transformed into a quasar which emits 1 trillion times more radiation than stars in the process of absorbing matter. This is enough to stop the gas needed to form stars from contracting.

Researchers now plan to study the GS-9209 galaxy in more detail. The Extra Large Telescope at the European Southern Observatory will help them do this. But the observatory is still under construction.

Source: Live Science