Dwarf galaxy merger is doubly pleasing

• Autores: Chelsea Whyte
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 3109, 2017, pág. 10
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Astronomers have found the first evidence of a dwarf galaxy smash-up about to happen--a finding that lends weight to two cosmological theories. Pairs of large and medium-sized galaxies have been seen colliding and merging before. It's a different story with dwarf galaxies: they often hang out at the fringes of larger galaxies, whose gravity strips them of their stars before a merger can take place. Now Sabrina Stierwalt at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville VA and her colleagues have combed the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and found seven isolated clusters containing nothing but dwarf galaxies. Each group is compact enough that at least one pair in each is ultimately likely to merge.