In his 18 years of life, freshman astrophysics student Julian Shapiro has discovered what some astronomers spend entire careers searching for: three dwarf galaxies of a rarely seen kind.

He fell in love with astronomy when he was about 12 years old after discovering images captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. From then on, he began taking photos of the sky in his North Carolina backyard.

“I really appreciate the aesthetic beauty of space, and, at the same time, I was getting interested in science more generally and physics,” Shapiro said. “I think those two merge kind of naturally into astrophysics.”

In his sole-author study published Tuesday, Shapiro reports finding what appear to be small galaxies that have stopped forming stars and may have swung past the nearby pinwheel galaxy.

Shapiro’s work offers a possible explanation for a puzzle that has stumped astrophysicists. In galaxies, gas is a fuel needed to create new stars. While isolated galaxies can create stars, those positioned closer to giant galaxies are drained of their star-forming gas.

The galaxies that Shapiro discovered, however, are both isolated and have stopped making stars, an incredibly rare combination. Shapiro argues these galaxies were once flung past their giant neighbors that stripped away the smaller galaxies’ gas.

“It’s a puzzle when you have these galaxies that don’t have a clear explanation for why their star formation is shut down, because they represent an incredibly small fraction of galaxies like this that we see,” Shapiro said.

While he largely conducted the research on his own, Shapiro credits his high school teacher Ryan Brennan, who was formerly an astrophysicist himself, with mentoring him in the code and physics he used in his research.

Now, Shapiro works with UC Berkeley’s Distinguished Professor of Astronomy Alex Filippenko to try and resolve the “Hubble tension,” a growing discrepancy between how fast the universe is predicted and observed to be expanding. Filippenko noted that Shapiro’s extensive background in research distinguishes him from other freshmen.

“Julian is clearly passionate about astrophysics, has advanced technical skills for a freshman, isn’t afraid of diving into difficult problems, and works very hard,” Filippenko said in an email. “I predict a very bright future for him as a research astrophysicist!”

Shapiro was recently awarded $25,000 as part of the prestigious 2026 Davidson Fellowship for his research. He won the National Young Astronomer award last year, and, at 15, he became the youngest discoverer of new planetary nebulae and supernova remnants.

Shapiro hopes to continue his research career in astrophysics in the future.

“I do hope that my work inspires other young people to get involved in the field, and I think there’s going to be a lot of great opportunities with the upcoming Rubin and Roman observatories,” Shapiro said. “There’s going to be tons of new data, which is a great opening.”