Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Galaxy born from two colliding galaxies

Little galaxy was born of two colliding galaxies
Grace Leemputte
Earth Science D-Odd/ Mrs. McClellan

"Little Galaxy Was Born of Two Colliding Galaxies." BBC Earth. Maggie McKee, 30 Oct. 2014. Web. 02 Nov. 2014.


            In the article by Maggie McKee, it explains the story of a galaxy called Andromeda II. The galaxy Andromeda II is thought to have been made by two galaxies that have collided. This merger galaxy is the smallest to have been discovered. The researchers from University of Copenhagen believe due to the evidence from Andromeda II that all galaxies begin quite small, but then can grow when they collide. They discovered this when they were looking at Andromeda II and saw that the rotations of the stars were different, because they rotated like a cigar. The scientist discovered that a small group of  the stars were moving in sync with Andromeda II. They say that this has given them some insight into dark matter. Andromeda II is the only galaxy that is known to merge that is that size, this can tell you how much dark matter is in the galaxy “In about four billion yearsthe Milky Way will slam into Andromeda, likely tossing our solar system out of its current seat relatively close to the galactic center” this is said by Nicola Amarisco.

            This article is significant because it says that now we have made this discovery, it will help us make new ones. It  will also help advance our science because we now know how to find more information on Dark Matter. Dark matter is something that makes up a huge part of the universe and we do not know that much about it. This can also help show us where our galaxy will be in the next billion years, because it is predicted to collide with the Andromeda galaxy.

            I thought that this article was written very well and contained lots of evidence. The author also included many pictures with captions that helped the reader understand the topics being discussed. Through reading this article I gained deeper insight in how galaxies can merge together. I also learned new things about our galaxy that I would have never guessed. A way this article could be improved is to insert some more ways on how this new discovery can affect our galaxy. Overall, I found this article to be very interesting and I learned a lot from it.

1 comment:

  1. I think Grace did a well job on specifying and naming the group of scientists, the Scientists University of Copenhagen who found the evidence on the theory some galaxies, such as Andromeda II, were created by two other galaxies colliding, forming a larger galaxy. I also think Grace did a good job on connecting this theory to our Milky Way Galaxy by stating that perhaps in about 4 billion years the Milky Way Galaxy will collide with Andromeda II. A third aspect which Grace did well on was saying how dark matter is relevant to the formation of Andromeda II.
    By reading Grace’s current event, I learned that in the process of forming Andromeda II, two galaxies combined to form a larger Galaxy called Andromeda II. I also never considered before the fact the Milky Way will collide with another Galaxy in the future, which I find to be pretty interesting.
    Over all, I think Grace did a good job on explaining how Andromeda II formed. If Grace explained a little more how evidence of dark matter was found in Andromeda II, the current event could have been better. I can understand how this can be a bit hard considering that we don’t have that much knowledge on dark matter.

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