Abstract / Description of output
The determination of the star-formation history of the Universe is a key
goal of modern cosmology, as it is crucial to our understanding of how
galactic structures form and evolve. Observations of young stars in
distant galaxies at different times in the past have indicated that the
stellar birthrate peaked some eight billion years ago before declining
by a factor of around ten to its present value. Here we report an
analysis of the `fossil record' of the current stellar populations of
96,545 nearby galaxies, from which we obtained a complete star-formation
history. Our results broadly support those derived from high-redshift
galaxies. We find, however, that the peak of star formation was more
recent-around five billion years ago. We also show that the bigger the
stellar mass of the galaxy, the earlier the stars were formed, which
indicates that high- and low-mass galaxies have very different
histories.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 625-627 |
| Journal | Nature |
| Volume | 428 |
| Issue number | 6983 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Apr 2004 |