猝灭在天文学中是一个星系失去冷气体,从而强烈抑制恒星形成的过程[1]。有证据表明活跃的超大质量黑洞驱动了这个过程。
在星系颜色-星等图上,一个常见的演化路径可能是从一个有很多恒星形成的蓝色螺旋星系开始。位于其中新的黑洞可能开始快速增长,却不知何故使星系猝灭,星系相对快速地通过"绿谷",最后变得更红[2][3][4]。
Schawinski, Kevin; Urry, C. Megan; Simmons, Brooke D.; Fortson, Lucy; Kaviraj, Sugata; Keel, William C.; Lintott, Chris J.; Masters, Karen L.; Nichol, Robert C.; Sarzi, Marc; Skibba, Ramin. The green valley is a red herring: Galaxy Zoo reveals two evolutionary pathways towards quenching of star formation in early- and late-type galaxies. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 2014-05-01, 440 (1): 889–907 [2021-06-18]. Bibcode:2014MNRAS.440..889S. ISSN 0035-8711. arXiv:1402.4814 . doi:10.1093/mnras/stu327 . (原始内容存档于2021-06-25) (英语).
Chen, Zhu; Faber, S. M.; Koo, David C.; Somerville, Rachel S.; Primack, Joel R.; Dekel, Avishai; Rodríguez-Puebla, Aldo; Guo, Yicheng; Barro, Guillermo; Kocevski, Dale D.; Wel, A. van der. Quenching as a Contest between Galaxy Halos and Their Central Black Holes. The Astrophysical Journal. 2020-07-07, 897 (1): 102 [2021-06-18]. Bibcode:2020ApJ...897..102C. ISSN 1538-4357. S2CID 202734402. arXiv:1909.10817 . doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ab9633. (原始内容存档于2021-11-02).