Dwarf galaxies formed large proportion of universe's stars

Researchers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have claimed that dwarf galaxies are responsible for forming a large proportion of the universe's stars.

The result supports a decade-long investigation into whether there is a link between a galaxy's mass and its star-forming activity, and helps paint a consistent picture of events in the early universe.

Lead author Lead author Hakim Atek of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, said they already suspected these kinds of galaxies would contribute to the early wave of star formation, but this is the first time we've been able to measure the effect they actually had.

The infrared capabilities of WFC3 have allowed astronomers to finally calculate how much these low-mass dwarf galaxies contributed to the star population in our universe.

Co-author Jean-Paul Kneib, also of EPFL said these galaxies are forming stars so quickly they could actually double their entire mass of stars in only 150 million years-an incredibly short astronomical timescale.

Researchers say such massive growth would take most "normal" galaxies 1 to 3 billion years.

The study has been published in The Astrophysical Journal.