IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v430y2004i6996d10.1038_nature02668.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Old galaxies in the young Universe

Author

Listed:
  • A. Cimatti

    (INAF - Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri)

  • E. Daddi

    (European Southern Observatory)

  • A. Renzini

    (European Southern Observatory)

  • P. Cassata

    (Università di Padova)

  • E. Vanzella

    (Università di Padova)

  • L. Pozzetti

    (INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna)

  • S. Cristiani

    (INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste)

  • A. Fontana

    (INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma)

  • G. Rodighiero

    (Università di Padova)

  • M. Mignoli

    (INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna)

  • G. Zamorani

    (INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna)

Abstract

More than half of all stars in the local Universe are found in massive spheroidal galaxies1, which are characterized by old stellar populations2,3 with little or no current star formation. In present models, such galaxies appear rather late in the history of the Universe as the culmination of a hierarchical merging process, in which larger galaxies are assembled through mergers of smaller precursor galaxies. But observations have not yet established how, or even when, the massive spheroidals formed2,3, nor if their seemingly sudden appearance when the Universe was about half its present age (at redshift z ≈ 1) results from a real evolutionary effect (such as a peak of mergers) or from the observational difficulty of identifying them at earlier epochs. Here we report the spectroscopic and morphological identification of four old, fully assembled, massive (1011 solar masses) spheroidal galaxies at l.6

Suggested Citation

  • A. Cimatti & E. Daddi & A. Renzini & P. Cassata & E. Vanzella & L. Pozzetti & S. Cristiani & A. Fontana & G. Rodighiero & M. Mignoli & G. Zamorani, 2004. "Old galaxies in the young Universe," Nature, Nature, vol. 430(6996), pages 184-187, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:430:y:2004:i:6996:d:10.1038_nature02668
    DOI: 10.1038/nature02668
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature02668
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature02668?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:430:y:2004:i:6996:d:10.1038_nature02668. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.