This galaxy took only 500 million years to form

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Galaxies are supposed to build up a very slowly, taking billions of years to acquire their vast bulk. But a newfound galaxy, appearing in the universe when it was only 1.8 billion years old, tells a different tale. It formed stars at a rate hundreds of times greater than the Milky Way, and was able to build itself up to host 200 billion stars in less than 500 million years – perhaps the universe’s greatest speed run.


Galaxies build up slowly. They start from very small nuggets and over the course of hundreds of millions and even billions of years, they merge with each other, steadily growing as they do, until they reach their current size in the present-day universe.


This is called the hierarchical model, and it’s the dominant theory to explain the growth of galaxies over cosmic time.

This galaxy took only 500 million years to form - Universe Today

Galaxies are supposed to build up a very slowly, taking billions of years to acquire their vast bulk. But a newfound galaxy, appearing in the universe when it was only 1.8 billion years old, tells a different tale. It formed stars at a rate hundreds of times greater than the Milky Way, and was...

www.universetoday.com