The beautiful swirls and streams surround the Umbrella Galaxy ( NGC 4651 ) are the result of a dwarf galaxy being eat on up by a larger one . A study in theMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Societyhas reveal the processes affect , and something about the unfortunate former beetleweed . Besides its beauty , the Umbrella Galaxy is of particular interest because it is considered a good framework for our own .
Galaxies grow bycannibalizing smaller ones , and it is uncouth for us to see the mental process afoot , including inour own Milky Way . therefore its hardly intelligence that the streams of headliner and flatulency around NGC 4651 , nickname the Umbrella Galaxy because the largest stream looks like the handgrip of a parasol , were form through this unconscious process . However , that still left elbow room for sight of motion : Was one galaxy being consumed or several ? How large was the meal ?
In 2010 Dr David Martinez - Delgado of the University of Heidelbergexaminedeight isolated whorled galaxies , like our own , and find grounds of mergers in six of them . Dr Caroline Foster of the Australian Astronomical Observatory result a follow up study to explore NGC 4651 in more detail , with Martinez - Delgado as one of the co - authors . NGC 4651 was chosen because it “ hosts one of the burnished and most salient arrangement of halo understructure in the local Universe , ” the authors say .
“ Through new techniques we have been able to mensurate the movements of the stars in the very distant , very faint , starring current in the Umbrella , ” says Foster . “ This permit us to construct the story of the system , which we could n’t before . ”
By tracingglobular clustersthat have held together despite the gravitative force practice to them , the remnants of leading explosions and patches of atomic number 1 natural gas the Foster and her fellow were able to square off the movement of superstar in the streams around the Galax urceolata . They established that these stream come from a exclusive gnome galaxy around a fiftieth of the mass of NGC 4651 itself . This is quite similar to the proportion of the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy to the Milky Way .
In the course of the cogitation the squad also tentatively identified the residuary karyon of the midget galaxy and established the distance to the Umbrella Galaxy as 62 million light years . Previous estimation had been outstandingly dispersed .
The generator go for that their study will explain some mysteries about the halos around many galaxy , noting , “ These include deficits of satellite around the Milky Way and other galaxies , and shallow gloomy subject cores rather than the central cusps in Galax urceolata over a wide range of luminosities . ”
R Jay Gabanay . This computer simulation based on former work shows the dispersion of remnants of the destroy dwarf galaxy
