Recent discovery was by scientists in Europe
Researchers have seen evidence of signs of a cannibalistic galaxy is growing. The UPI report shares this amazing discovery with the world in the above image of a galaxy consuming another galaxy. The discovery showed the world and confirmed some people’s suspicions that a cannibalistic galaxy is possible in helping it grow in size.
What in the world does this mean?
To date, scientists have only speculated the idea of a cannibalistic galaxy’s growing in size and considered the idea very plausible, but finding the evidence to make this concrete was difficult. Until today. The news of this discovery is to say the least, very exhilarating for both the team that discovered the spectacle but also for the science community in large.
Any news get released on it?
Ph.D student Alessia Longobardi, Ortwin Gerhard, Magda Arnaboldi, and a J.C. Mihos released a paper with Astronomy & Astrophysics for the July 2015 volume about their discovery of this phenomena that is the cannibalistic galaxy in more detail. According to the link, the discovery was accepted near the end of May until it was finally shared with the scientific community in the July volume.
Gerhard commented in the UPI report, “We are witnessing a single recent accretion event where a medium-sized galaxy fell through the center of Messier 87 and as a consequence of the enormous gravitational tidal forces, its stars are now scattered over a region that is 100 times larger than the original galaxy!”
How did they find it? How lucky can you get?
In finding how the cannibalistic galaxy grew in size, the team studied the movement of the planetary nebulae only to find something data that showed evidence the consumption of the other galaxy within this one, except now expanded.
The odds of finding this marvel was very slim but very fortuitous for the team as the information gathered from this may provide further information and/or discoveries akin to this and answer other questions such as what is going on with the galaxy that was consumed? The affects, effects, possible continual size expansion, etc. There is much to be learned from this discovery.
