‘Wasteful Galaxies’ Send Heavy Elements Out Into Nearby Halos and Deep Space, According To Study

Wasteful galaxies have "spent" enormous amounts of heavy elements from star formation by sending them a million light years away out of nearby halos and deep space. The research, which was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, was based on a study spearheaded by the University of Colorado Boulder.

The wasteful galaxies are indicative of the existence of more carbon, iron atoms and oxygen in their gaseous halos exterior than what exists within them. This leaves the galaxies  lacking in terms of raw materials required to form planets and star.  According to lead author Benjamin Oppenheimer, they previously thought that the heavier elements can be used again in the future generations of star to help form a planetary system. However, the research suggests that the galaxies are not good at recycling.
Following a series of simulations, the team of researchers discovered that the CGMs in the two types of galaxies have exceeded half of the galaxy's heavier elements, which imply that the galaxies are not good at keeping their raw materials than previously expected. Co-author Robert Crain noted that the significant resemblance of the galaxies in the simulations made to those aimed at by the COS has enabled them to explain the observations, I4U reported.

In addition to this, the new simulations interpreted the mysterious COS observation that there seems to be less oxygen in the elliptical compared to the spiral galaxies. Co-author Joop Schaye of the Leiden University in the Netherlands said that the elliptical galaxies of the CGM are much hotter. In contrast, CGM's temperature in spiral galaxies is 300,000 degrees Kelvin or about 50 times hotter compared to the Sun's surface.

Wasteful galaxies will require a massive amount of energy from the exploding supermassive black holes and exploding supernova just to launch all the heavy elements into the CGM. As explained by Oppenheimer, this is a long and violent process that may take more than 10 billion of years, which means in a galaxy such as the Milky Way, such highly ionized oxygen that is being observed has already existed before the Sun was even born, according to Gadgets NDTV.