Astronomers have long assumed that when a galaxy produces
too many stars too quickly, it greatly reduces its capacity for producing stars
in the future. Now, a group of astronomers that includes Fabian Walter from the
Max Planck Institute for Astronomy were able to obtain the first detailed
images of this type of self-limiting galactic behavior: an outflow of molecular
gas, the raw material needed for star formation, that is coming from
star-forming regions in the Sculptor Galaxy (NGC 253). The study, which uses
the newly commissioned telescope array ALMA in Chile, is published in the
journal Nature on July 25, 2013.