Many parents are familiar with the dreaded growth spurt, where their preteen gains 6 inches in height seemingly overnight and requires a whole new wardrobe. Growth spurts happen on a cosmic scale too. In the early universe, many galaxies just 2 to 3 billion years old underwent growth spurts of their own, forming stars hundreds of times faster than they do today.

While astronomers see evidence for these galactic growth spurts, many questions remain. Why did some galaxies “live fast and die young” while others ceased forming stars more gradually? Did their neighbors influence their evolution? To answer questions like these, scientists need to study a large number of galaxies. 

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, with a field of view 200 times Hubble’s in the infrared, will be able to capture images and spectra from thousands of galaxies in a single observation. Such a bounty of data will help astronomers discover hidden chapters in the universe’s history of stars.