The Andromeda wandflower is destined to collide and immix with the Milky Way a few billion years into the hereafter and now researcher have uncovered some cue paint a picture that it has done this sorting of affair before . The two galaxies might have had a large sib in the past times that was destroy and exhaust by Andromeda .
As reported inNature Astronomy , researchers constructed a model of Andromeda to instal how merger events have shape the extragalactic nebula . cock-a-hoop galaxies like ours and Andromeda are expected to have cannibalized 100 of smaller galaxy , and the leftovers are seen in ribbon that wrap around the major wandflower . These current of stars are the only evidence we have of some of these events .
Astronomers looked at the ribbons around Andromeda and discover a more complex picture . There is a halo of stars , almost invisible , which is large than Andromeda . There is also a flow of stars , as well as a queer stocky extragalactic nebula called M32 . The model suggests that M32 is what remain of a much bigger galaxy put down by Andromeda .
“ It was a ‘ eureka ’ moment . We realized we could use this selective information of Andromeda ’s outer star halo to infer the properties of the with child of these rip up galaxies , ” lead author Dr Richard D’Souza , from the University of Michigan , say in astatement .
M32p , as this potential predecessor has been nicknamed , used to have a mass of 25 billion Suns before the hit with Andromeda ingest shoes 2 billion years ago . The merger did not massively convert the shape of Andromeda but bring the wandflower a new eld of ace organisation , lead to many novel star being carry .
“ The Andromeda galaxy , with a striking salvo of whizz formation , would have looked so different 2 billion years ago , ” co - author Professor Eric Bell bring . “ When I was at graduate school day , I was tell that understanding how the Andromeda galaxy and its satellite galaxy M32 formed would go a foresighted means towards unraveling the mystery of galaxy organisation . stargazer have been contemplate the Local Group – the Milky Way , Andromeda and their comrade – for so long . It was shocking to clear that the Milky Way had a expectant sibling , and we never cognize about it . ”
The team believes that this method can be used on other galaxy . They hope that this approach can help astronomer better understand the important purpose that merger events play in the evolution of wandflower .
