14 DAY TRIAL // Thanks to a very rare alignment of a distant galaxy and an even more distant quasar, European Southern Observatory astronomers have been able to observe and study a phenomenon they had long believed existed, but had never been able to get much evidence for.
Because the quasar and the galaxy are roughly aligned with the earth, the light coming from the quasar lights up the galaxy and the various gas clouds around it.
This made it possible to see how the galaxy fed on the gas around it, something that hadn't been seen before. This provides evidence for the theory that galaxies attract surrounding material in order to grow and fuel the creation of new stars.
"Galaxies quickly deplete their reservoirs of gas as they create new stars, and so must somehow be continuously replenished with fresh gas to keep going. Astronomers suspected that the answer to this problem lay in the collection of cool gas from the surroundings by the gravitational pull of the galaxy," the ESO explained.