As astronomers poke around for galaxies so far away (and so far back in time), they hope to find the seeds of what eventually
became modern galaxies.
Modern galaxies like our own Milky Way became giants by swallowing their smaller neighbors and absorbing their billions of stars.
That rate is similar to the feeding frenzy that powered quasars at the cores of galaxies in the early universe, but it's unheard of
in modern galaxies, McNamara says.
«This novel result suggests that spin is fundamental to explaining why early galaxies are gas - rich and lumpy
while modern galaxies display beautiful symmetric patterns.»
But it also tantalized astronomers with hints of the true building blocks
of modern galaxies, just beyond Hubble's grasp at the time.
Other evidence comes from the analysis of
modern galaxies, most of which have central black holes whose masses seem to correlate closely with the properties of their host galaxies.
The blobs hail from a crucial moment when those first stars flooded the cosmos with energy, setting off a chain of events that led to the formation of
modern galaxies.