The Milky Way will also swallow Andromeda. But don't worry. There are still a few billion years until that happens
Avi Blizovsky
Pictured: Andromeda galaxy and its neighbors
Large galaxies swallow the neighboring small galaxies. That's what scientists say this week.
Rodrigo Ibata at the Observatory in Strasbourg, France, recently discovered what they call a "smear" of stars at the edge of the Andromeda galaxy, which they believe to be the remains of a dwarf galaxy that orbited Alpha Centauri.
"They found that small galaxies are constantly being eaten by large galaxies," Ibate said. Their findings were published in the scientific magazine "Nature". Large galaxies were formed from the merger of many small galaxies in the hip system. The small systems were the ones that were easy to form, then they united and formed larger structures. According to Ibata, this was also done for the Milky Way - our galaxy. The spiral structure of the neighboring galaxy Andromeda is surrounded by an invisible halo of stars - "dark matter". The constellation discovered in Andromeda's halo is 3 million light years from Earth.
According to the researchers, the satellite galaxy was torn apart and then the stars inside it were swallowed up by Andromeda's gravitational tidal wave.
Larger galaxies such as the Milky Way and Andromeda may also make contact, but there is no fear that anything will happen to Earth. Ibate said.
The prediction of a collision between the two, which will create a single large elliptical galaxy, is not expected to be heard until 3 to 4 billion years from now.
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