articleMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical SocietyMar 16, 2014BRONZE OA

The green valley is a red herring: Galaxy Zoo reveals two evolutionary pathways towards quenching of star formation in early- and late-type galaxies★

KSKevin SchawinskiCMC. M. UrryBSBrooke SimmonsLFL. FortsonSKSugata Kaviraj

ETH Zurich · Yale Cancer Center · +12 more institutions

Indexed inarxivcrossrefdoaj

Abstract

We use SDSS+GALEX+Galaxy Zoo data to study the quenching of star formation in low-redshift galaxies. We show that the green valley between the blue cloud of star-forming galaxies and the red sequence of quiescent galaxies in the colour–mass diagram is not a single transitional state through which most blue galaxies evolve into red galaxies. Rather, an analysis that takes morphology into account makes clear that only a small population of blue early-type galaxies move rapidly across the green valley after the morphologies are transformed from disc to spheroid and star formation is quenched rapidly. In contrast, the majority of blue star-forming galaxies have significant discs, and they retain their late-type…

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Keywords
  • Physics
  • Astrophysics
  • Peculiar galaxy
  • Star formation
  • Galaxy
  • Astronomy
  • Elliptical galaxy
  • Galaxy formation and evolution
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