The Milky Way's long-lost sibling finally found

Scientists at the University of Michigan have deduced that the Andromeda galaxy, our closest large galactic neighbor, shredded and cannibalized a massive galaxy two billion years ago.

Even though it was mostly shredded, this massive galaxy left behind a rich trail of evidence: an almost invisible halo of stars larger than the Andromeda galaxy itself, an elusive stream of stars and a separate enigmatic compact galaxy, M32. Discovering and studying this decimated galaxy will help astronomers understand how disk galaxies like the Milky Way evolve and survive large mergers.

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A new paper published in Nature Astronomy suggests that Andromeda may have devoured another galaxy, whose remnants now exist as the satellite galaxy M32. Researchers suggest that before merging with Andromeda, M32 would have been the third largest galaxy in our Local group of galaxies.

Dragon wrote:an almost invisible halo of stars larger than the Andromeda galaxy itself,

wow, a halo of stars bigger than the Andromeda Galaxy. That must be beautiful

Thanks for sharing