That suggest black holes rapidly shut off star-formation in massive galaxies by explosively removing large amounts of gas.
The international team found that more than 90 per cent of the galactic wind is made of neutral gas, and therefore was virtually invisible in previous studies. This work is the first direct confirmation that supermassive black holes are capable of shutting down galaxies.
When star formation is quenched, it means that a galaxy has stopped forming stars. It represents the transformation between a galaxy that is actively forming stars, allowing it to grow and change, and a galaxy that is ‘dead’ and static. Quenching is therefore a fundamental process in the life cycle of galaxies. However, astronomers still don’t understand in detail what leads galaxies to stop forming stars.
