Category: Galaxies

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Long-lost sibling of the Milky Way was eaten by Andromeda billions of years ago

sudshr47 July 23, 2018

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Scientists have discovered the remnants of a galaxy hiding in plain sight.

The galaxy, named M32p, was once the third largest in the group of galaxies nearest to our Milky Way — known as the Local Group. The Andromeda galaxy and M32p existed in harmony until around 2 billion years ago, but then something shifted. 

According to a new study published in the journal Nature Astronomy today, Andromeda actually devoured the smaller galaxy, and its remains can be see in the clouds, gas, and dust of the huge galaxy today.

Massive galaxies like Andromeda automatically attract other galaxies to it when they’re in close enough range due to its size and its gravitational pull. Because of that, it’s not unusual for a galaxy of that mass to effectively cannibalize other nearby galaxies nearby.  Read more…

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Researchers spot colliding galaxies interacting in the early universe

sudshr47 April 29, 2018

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The earliest eons of the universe were turbulent and violent. 

Newly found data shows that back then — just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang set this cosmic experiment in motion — a group of 14 galaxies in the midst of star formation merged and interacted with one another. 

The galaxies found in the new data, which was collected by the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) ALMA and APEX telescopes, are known as starburst galaxies. 

These types of galaxies form thousands of stars each year, as opposed to a more typical galaxy like our own, which only forms a few annually.  Read more…

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Astonishingly detailed map of the Milky Way will blow your mind

sudshr47 April 25, 2018

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We now have the most detailed catalogue of stars in our Milky Way galaxy yet. 

The new map — created using data collected by the Gaia satellite — shows about 1.7 billion stars, including many objects never seen before, according to the European Space Agency (ESA), which runs Gaia. 

The catalogue represents almost two years of sky charting.

“The observations collected by Gaia are redefining the foundations of astronomy,” Günther Hasinger, ESA Director of Science, said in a statement.

“Gaia is an ambitious mission that relies on a huge human collaboration to make sense of a large volume of highly complex data.” Read more…

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