Two Maunakea Observatories Reveal the History of our Large Galactic Neighbor
The Discovery of 20 New Moons Gives Saturn the Record
October 8, 2019
A 3-D View of a Distant Supercluster of Galaxies
November 4, 2019
The globular clusters studied (lower right insets), indicated by colored circles, are located in the outer halo of the Andromeda Galaxy, beyond the bright disk of the galaxy (upper left inset). The star clusters separate into two groups — those associated and unassociated with stellar streams — that have very different orbits, a result that points to two discrete migration events in the history of the galaxy. The color of each circle indicates the line-of-sight velocity of the corresponding star cluster. Credit: Australian National University / NSF's National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory
The nearest large galaxy to us – the Andromeda Galaxy – is a good place to study the history of galaxies like our own Milky Way, from the outside, without the complication of being embedded within. Two Maunakea observatories – Gemini and the Canada-France Hawaii Telescope – provided critical data for studying the motions of star clusters in the outer regions of the Andromeda Galaxy. The results reveal the remains of past “galactic cannibalism” events in which the Andromeda Galaxy swallowed smaller galaxies (almost) whole. Eventually the Milky Way itself appears to be on Andromeda’s menu (but not for a very long time!). Find out more in the two related news releases: CFHT and Gemini Observatory.
