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New theory addresses frozen Earth paradox
NEW HAVEN, Conn., Dec. 15 (UPI) -- A Yale University astronomer says more than half of the largest galaxies in the near universe have collided and merged during the past 2 billion years.
Pieter van Dokkum, assistant professor of astronomy, used hundreds of images from two of the deepest sky surveys ever conducted to reach his conclusion.
The idea of large galaxies being assembled primarily by colliding with each other, rather than evolving by themselves in isolation, has grown to dominate cosmological thinking, van Dokkum said. However, a troubling inconsistency has been that the most massive galaxies appear to be the oldest, leaving minimal time since the Big Bang for the mergers to have occurred.
"Our study found these common massive galaxies do form by mergers," said van Dokkum. "It is just that the mergers happen quickly, and the features that reveal the mergers are very faint and, therefore, difficult to detect."
His findings are published in the December issue of the Astronomical Journal.
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