This is due, unless the prolonged observations are inexplicably misleading or a poorly understood mechanism is at hand, to a catastrophic merger – prompting a secondary part of the galaxy that hosts rapid star formation.
[10] If it continues at this rhythm, or similar, the galaxy has only a few tens of millions of years left for star production,[4] a very minute fraction of cosmic history.
Major gas loss had been modelled as likely either from stellar winds, from star formation[10] or from relativistic jets and other ejections from the supermassive black hole and its sphere of influence, in the galactic nucleus.
The accretion of matter there is accompanied by the emission of large amounts of energy and the appearance of powerful winds, capable of sweeping away the galaxy's gas.
In this earlier stage of the universe galaxies were closer together so more mergers took place, many dislodging high quantities of their respective interstellar matter.