AstroTalk Episode June 22, 2017

August 21 Total Solar Eclipse and Dead Galaxy MACS2129-1

3:00pm - 3:27pm

NASA is preparing the public for the total solar eclipse of August 21, 2017. NASA has also found a "dead" galaxy, that stopped making stars only a few billion years after the Big Bang. The galaxy, , was thought to have originally been a Milky Way type galaxy, but then it evolved into a giant elliptical-type galaxy. The galaxy is also noteworthy because is now considered a "dead galaxy", one that stopped forming stars only a few billion years after the Big Bang. This type of galaxy not only changed its structure but also the motions of its stars to make a shape of an elliptical galaxy. The findings are making scientists rethink their earlier theories on how galaxies can burn out. Scientists now wonder whether this particular galaxy may not have fit the earlier models, simply because scientists were unable to image it. This was therefore the firast time that this type of galaxy evolution has been imaged.