An international team of astronomers led by scientists at the University of California, Riverside, has found an unusual monster galaxy that existed about 12 billion years ago, when the universe was only 1.8 billion years old, or 13 percent of its current age of 13.8 billion years. Using W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea in Hawaii, the team found that the galaxy, dubbed XMM-2599, formed stars at a high rate and then died. Why it suddenly stopped forming stars is unclear. The study is published in The Astrophysical Journal.
