A Surprising Trend in Galaxy Evolution

A Surprising Trend in Galaxy Evolution

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NASA astronomers have discovered a stunning trend in galaxy evolution, according to a report from the space agency. The stunning trend in galaxy evolution goes back 8 billion years, say astronomers who looked at numerous galaxies through the Keck telescopes and NASA’s Space Telescope. “Astronomers thought disk galaxies in the nearby universe had settled into their present form by about 8 billion years ago, with little additional development since,” said lead researcher Susan Kassin, an astronomer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, in a statement. “The trend we’ve observed instead shows the opposite, that galaxies were steadily changing over this time period.”

Astronomers say that galaxies have evolved towards better organization like orderly dish-shaped systems, such as the Andromeda Galaxy or the Milky Way. In these galaxies, rotation is the primary motion. Astronomers found that distant galaxies were more disorganized, demonstrating chaotic motion in all directions. The closer that blue galaxies are observed to the present, astronomers note, the better their organization.