Astronomers found that the Andromeda Galaxy's past is remarkably similar to that of the Milky Way.
The cosmic event occurred in our nearest galactic neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy, and it provides a window into the role of dark matter and the motion of individual stars throughout the cosmos.Up until the new discovery, astronomers had only detected galactic immigration events in the Milky Way.A galactic immigration event, as the name implies, refers to the movement of a vast amount of stars, typically into the halo of a galaxy.
on the Nicholas U. Mayall four-meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory, a Program of NSF's NOIRLab., measured the motions of approximately 7,500 stars in the inner halo of the Andromeda Galaxy, which is also known as Messier 31 . During this investigation, they found patterns in the positions and motions of stars that were indicative of immigration. Specifically, they observed stars that merged with M31 during a galaxy merger some two billion years ago.
The new observations reveal a great deal about the cannibalistic past of both the Milky Way and our nearest neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy. Next, the team behind the discovery plans to carry out more observations of M31's outlying stars in order to reveal its structure and immigration history in greater detail.
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