Scientists at the University of Michigan concluded that the Andromeda Galaxy, the Milky Way's largest galactic neighbor, swallowed a massive galaxy of similar size to the Milky Way and Andromeda itself and absorbed most of its stars into a halo.
Illustration: Richard D'Souza. Image of Andromeda courtesy of Wei-Hao Wang. Image of M31 Andromeda's halo stars courtesy of AAS/IOP.
Scientists at the University of Michigan have concluded that the Andromeda Galaxy, the Milky Way's largest galactic neighbor, swallowed a massive galaxy of the same size as the Milky Way and Andromeda about 2 billion years ago.
Although it was almost completely swallowed up, the galaxy left a rich trail of evidence such as an almost invisible halo of stars larger than Andromeda itself, an elusive stream of stars and a mysterious separate galaxy – M32.
The discovery and study of the destroyed galaxy will help astronomers understand how galaxies like the Milky Way evolve and survive major mergers.
This large destroyed galaxy, known by scientists as M32p, was the third largest galaxy in the Local Group of galaxies, after the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy. Using computer models, Richard D'Souza and Eric Bell from the Department of Astronomy at the University of Michigan were able to find the evidence, put together a model, and reveal this lost sister of the Milky Way.
Their findings were published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
Scientists already know that it is almost impossible to see) a large halo of stars around galaxies made of the remnants of smaller galaxies that have been swallowed.
A galaxy like Andromeda is expected to consume hundreds of its smaller companions. The researchers thought it would be difficult to follow the history of each one of them separately."
Using new computer simulations, the scientists concluded that although many companion galaxies were engulfed by Andromeda, most of the stars in Andromeda's faint outer halo were contributed primarily by merging with a single large galaxy.
"It was a 'eureka' moment, realizing that we could use this information of Andromeda's outer halo to understand the properties of the largest engulfed galaxy. said lead author D'Souza. Such encounters will cause the discs to collapse and create an elliptical galaxy.
The timing of the merger could also explain the thickening of the Andromeda galaxy's disk, and the burst of star formation about 2 billion years ago, a finding independently discovered by French researchers earlier this year.
"The Andromeda galaxy, with its spectacular burst of star formation, looked so different 2 billion years ago," Bell said. "When I was in graduate school I was told that Andromeda and M32 evolved as we see them today, in the initial process of galaxy formation."
The method used in this study can also be used for other galaxies and makes it possible to measure the largest galaxy mergers in the universe, the researchers say. With this knowledge, scientists will be able to better unravel the intricate web of cause and effect that causes galaxy growth and study how these mergers affect the galaxies involved.
University of Michigan announcement
More of the topic in Hayadan:
- Are our galaxy and neighboring galaxy Andromeda already touching and will collide sooner than we think?
- Hubble photographed the double nucleus of the Andromeda galaxy
- The Milky Way is more massive, spins faster and is more likely to collide with Andromeda
- Act in two galaxies - Andromeda and the Milky Way -They are similar in almost everything, but still there is a difference in the age of the stars in the halo
4 תגובות
eaten in a gulp
to laws of conformity.
Andromeda swallowed a galaxy,
There is evidence that you also swallowed something.
Maybe some ball?
Vital laws: every word - bullshit.
What is written in this article is mostly true with some small mistakes and inaccuracies. In about three billion years, Andromeda will swallow the Milky Way, and after the aforementioned galactic merger with our Earth, only a few hundred million years will be left, if at all, until its complete disintegration. In a billion years from now, no life forms will exist on our planet and the vegetation will be extremely sparse and maybe only a few insects will be left in it and that's all. The water and the oceans on the earth will probably be left until the end and the disintegration of the earth, but there will be no living creatures in the various bodies of water, nor will aquatic plants be left, maybe corals will be left and nothing else. In about a billion years the earth will return to being desolate as it was in the beginning. To the people who believe in God, I say that after all of humanity will be resurrected and all of us without exception will have a good, healthy and happy life for endless generations and endless years as soon as it is no longer possible to manage life on earth, we will all die peacefully and our divine and eternal souls will live peacefully in the world of souls under the direction of a creator of the world who is everything and is above everything and is eternal. By the way, for those who believe like me in the invention of aliens on Mars and the moon that orbits our earth, I say that in the not so distant future God will take the souls of all aliens because they have hurt animals and humans with endless cruelty and in our world not a single alien will gain a new life. By the way, all human beings have always had a divine soul, and what sustains the aliens is a consciousness that can be called a soul, but this is not a divine soul as found in us humans.