First evidence of galaxy metamorphosis detected

Many galaxies in the universe have undergone a dramatic transformation from flat discs into spherical shapes over the past 8 billion years or so.  An international team looked at data on some 10,000 of the billions of galaxies in the observable universe today, and then used the Hubble and Herschel telescopes to peer back in time.  They found that 83 per cent of stars formed since the Big Bang about 13.8 billion years ago, were initially grouped in flat, rotating, disc-shaped galaxies, called spirals.  But only 49 per cent of stars that exist in the universe today are located in these disc-shaped galaxies, the remainder are located in spherical-shaped galaxies called elliptical galaxies.