Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have measured the most powerful gas outflow ever recorded from a “dead” galaxy outside our cosmic neighborhood and found that even outflows this extreme may not be enough to permanently shut down star formation.

Studying 23 massive, quiescent galaxies from roughly 11–13 billion years ago, researchers traced neutral gas being blown outward using a specific absorption signature in their light, detecting outflows in many of them. Their paper was published in Astronomy & Astrophysics on Aug. 14.