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A Goan Catholic priest, astrophysicist and researcher, and working at the University of Michigan in US has found evidence of a long lost galaxy, the third largest after the Milky Way and Andromeda was shredded and cannibalised by the latter around two billion years ago.
Fr Richard D’Souza, a Jesuit priest and hails from Mapusa, led the research along with Eric Bell at the University of Michigan’s Department of Astronomy and has published his findings in Nature Astronomy, recently.
“Using computer models, D’Souza and Bell of the University of Michigan’s Department of Astronomy were able to piece together this evidence, revealing this long-lost sibling of the Milky Way,” the University of Michigan said.
The cannibalised galaxy named M32p, was the third-largest member of the Local Group of galaxies, after the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies. Using computer models, Richard D’Souza and Eric Bell of the University of Michigan’s Department of Astronomy were able to piece together this evidence, revealing this long-lost sibling of the Milky Way.
The 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.
Using new computer simulations, the scientists were able to understand that even though many companion galaxies were consumed by Andromeda, most of the stars in the Andromeda’s outer faint halo were mostly contributed by shredding a single large galaxy.
“It was a ‘eureka’ moment. We realised we could use this information of Andromeda’s outer stellar halo to infer the properties of the largest of these shredded galaxies,” said lead author D’Souza, a postdoctoral researcher whose comments were offered through a University of Michigan press note.
HOW FR. D’SOUZA DID IT
Using new computer simulations, it was found that though many companion galaxies were consumed by Andromeda, most of the stars in Andromeda’s outer faint halo were mostly contributed by shredding a single large galaxy
D’Souza and Bell pieced together this evidence, revealing this long-lost sibling of the Milky Way
The massive galaxy had left 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
