ESA / NASA / JPL-CALTE / CSIRO / NENTE2 / C. Clark (stsci)
Small cloud of Magalhães
An analysis of the stars’ movements made by the Gaia space probe revealed that the small cloud of Magalhães – a satellite galaxy linked to the Milky Way – is being shattered by its larger neighbor. Astronomers are in shock.
A study this Wednesday in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series revealed that our “neighbor” Small cloud of Magalhães is being shattered.
Located about 200,000 light years from Earth, the small cloud of Magalhães (SMC) is a dwarf galaxy that, along with its large cloud of Magalhães (LMC), is gravitatively attached to our Milky Way.
The two satellite galaxies orbit beside ours, and it would be expected that, within a few millions of millions of years, they collided and merged with the Milky Way.
But before this distant date, the new analysis of star standards revealed that, after all, SMC may have a different destination: Be completely destroyed by your larger neighbor.
“When we first observed the results, we suspected that there could be an error in our analysis method. However, after a deeper analysis, we found them that the results are indisputable and We stayed shocked“, Confessed, in, the co -author of the study Kengo Tachiharafrom the University of Nagoya, Japan.
As explained, along with the Milky Way and LMC, SMC is part of the Local groupa set of about 30 galaxies in our cosmic backyard.
Despite the proximity of SMC, the relatively small size of the galaxy and the effects of obscuration of the interstellar gas and dust have made its observation difficult.
The triangular spot of the SMC (above) is relatively small, measuring only 7,000 light years in diameter compared to the 100,000 light years of diameter of our galaxy, surround LMC once every 900 million years and The Milky Way once every 1.5 billion years.
MCELS / Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory / University of Michigan
The small cloud of Magalhães
To know the internal operation of SMC, the investigators resorted to the space ship, which mapped the positions of about 2 billion stars on the Milky Way and the surrounding galaxies.
In analyzing the third version of Gaia’s data, astronomers followed the movements of about 7,000 SMC stars and reached a shocking conclusion: “SMC stars were moving in opposite directions on both sides of the galaxy, as if they were being removed“.
“This unexpected movement suggests that The LMC is pulling through its little companion, leading to its gradual destruction“Kengo Tachihara lamented, quoted by Live Science.
The investigators’ analysis also revealed that, unlike the Milky Way, the massive stars in SMC were not running around the axis of the galaxy. This suggests that Something may be wrong in our understanding of the mass of the galaxy and its history of interactions with LMC and the Milky Way.
