Space news: Astronomers observe a galaxy’s death for the first time ever. - Deseret News

The galaxy in question is known by astronomers as ID2299, a galaxy that’s positioned so far away from Earth that its light takes about 9 billion years of travel to get here.

This means that when astronomers gaze upon ID2299 through their fancy telescopes, they’re essentially looking into the galaxy’s past and studying how it was behaving when the universe was just 4.5 billion years old.

Our astronomers looked back 9 billion years to see how mergers like that which formed ID2299 could shut down #starformation & affect galaxy growth: https://t.co/5gZ8P2MV6b#DUResearch pic.twitter.com/D3Oum5smn4.

According to CNN, ID2299 is simultaneously forming stars at a rate that’s several hundred times faster than that of our Milky Way galaxy, effectively draining the remainder of its precious gas supply.

The current theory is that ID2299 began exhibiting this behavior after it collided with another galaxy, CNN reports