Astronomers have discovered that young, fertile galaxies give birth to stars such as the Sun at a “runaway” rate of up to 50 a year. They found that “stellar nurseries” within early galaxies similar to the Milky Way, produced stars far more rapidly than first thought.

Astronomers looked back 12.5 billion years to study one of the most distant galaxies known, MS1358arc. Light from the galaxy began its journey across the Universe one billion years after the big bang.

“Gravitational lensing” was used to magnify the galaxy by making use of the way its light bent round a nearby galaxy cluster. Using this technique the scientists were able to observe rapid bursts of star formation.

New stars were being created in the galaxy’s star-forming regions at a rate 100 times faster than predicted.

Measuring 6,000 light years across, the collection of stars was expected to evolve into a spiral galaxy similar to our own, the Milky Way.

The findings, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, were based on observations from the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii and Nasa’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes.

Dr Mark Swinbank, an astronomer from the University of Durham, said: “The runaway effect in this galaxy suggests it is growing much faster than expected.

“Given the size of the star-forming regions, we would expect it to be forming stars at the rate of about one sun per year, but it seems to be much more active than that.

“We think this galaxy is fairly typical of galaxies at this time and we expect that the Milky Way once looked like this as it formed its first stars.

“In effect we are seeing the first generation of stars being born in a galaxy like the Milky Way. This gives unique insight into the birth of our own galaxy.”

Most of the observed stars would have eventually exploded as supernovae at the end of their lives, said the scientists. However, light from the explosions will not reach our part of the universe for billions more years.

Supernova explosions hurl debris into space which eventually forms new stars and planets.

“In this respect these stars are the seeds of future star formation in the universe,” said Dr Swinbank.

Professor Andy Fabian, president of the Royal Astronomical Society, which funded the study, said: “This pioneering work shows what our own galaxy might have looked like when it was a tenth of its present age.”

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