• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Tuesday, October 7, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Chemistry

Tracing the remnants of Andromeda’s violent history

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
June 13, 2022
in Chemistry
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
Galaxy Mergers
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

Pasadena, CA— A detailed analysis of the composition and motion of more than 500 stars revealed conclusive evidence of ancient a collision between Andromeda and a neighboring galaxy. The findings, which improve our understanding of the events that shape galaxy evolution, were presented by Carnegie’s Ivanna Escala Monday at the meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

Galaxy Mergers

Credit: This composite image of 12 galaxy mergers is courtesy of NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration and A. Evans (University of Virginia, Charlottesville/NRAO/Stony Brook University), K. Noll (STScI), and J. Westphal (Caltech).

Pasadena, CA— A detailed analysis of the composition and motion of more than 500 stars revealed conclusive evidence of ancient a collision between Andromeda and a neighboring galaxy. The findings, which improve our understanding of the events that shape galaxy evolution, were presented by Carnegie’s Ivanna Escala Monday at the meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

Galaxies grow by accreting material from nearby objects—other galaxies and dense clumps of stars called globular clusters—often in the aftermath of a catastrophic crash. And these events leave behind relics in the form of stellar associations that astronomers call tidal features. This can include elongated streams or arcing shells moving around the surviving galaxy. Studying these phenomena can help us understand a galaxy’s history and the forces that shaped its appearance and makeup.

“The remnants of each crash can be identified by studying the movement of the stars and their chemical compositions. Together this information serves as a kind of fingerprint that identifies stars that joined a galaxy in a collision,” Escala explained.

She and her collaborators—Karoline Gilbert and Mark Fardal of the Space Telescope Science Institute, Puragra Guhathakurta of UC Santa Cruz, Robyn Sanderson of the University of Pennsylvania, Jason Kalirai of Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, and Bahram Mobasher of UC Riverside—studied 556 red giant branch stars in a physical feature of Andromeda called the Northeast shelf, which forms a sharp ledge in the density of the galaxy’s material.

“We performed the first detailed characterization of the chemical composition and geometric motion of the stars in this region of our neighboring galaxy, demonstrating conclusively that the NE shelf is a tidal shell predominately composed of debris from the aftermath of a collision,” Escala explained.

Their work also demonstrates that the NE shelf is part of a multi-shell system with the galaxy’s West and Southeast shelves and that the material in these regions is consistent with that of Andromeda’s Giant Stellar Stream, linking all of these tidal features as potentially originating from the same source.

“Our results are in line with modeling that predicted the Giant Stellar Stream is the first loop of material from a collision and the NE shelf is the second layer wrap-around,” Escala concluded.

This level of analysis confirms predictions about Andromeda’s violent past and informs astronomer’s understanding of how material accreted by collisions shapes a galaxy’s surrounding features and evolutionary history.  

__________________

This work was supported by a Carnegie Princeton Fellowship, the U.S. National Science Foundation, NASA, the Research Corporation for Scientific Advancement’s Scialog fellows program on Time Domain Astronomy, and from the Space Telescope Science Institute.

The Carnegie Institution for Science (carnegiescience.edu) is a private, nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with three research divisions on both coasts. Since its founding in 1902, the Carnegie Institution has been a pioneering force in basic scientific research. Carnegie scientists are leaders in the life and environmental sciences, Earth and planetary science, and astronomy and astrophysics.

 



Method of Research

Observational study

Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

Bright Red-NIR Glow from Carbodicarbene Borenium Ions

Bright Red-NIR Glow from Carbodicarbene Borenium Ions

October 6, 2025
blank

Transforming Biogas Waste into an Effective Solution for Ammonium Pollution Cleanup

October 6, 2025

Scientists Incorporate Waveguide Physics into Metasurfaces to Unlock Advanced Light Manipulation

October 6, 2025

Scientists Develop “Knob” to Control Topological Spin Textures in Materials

October 6, 2025

POPULAR NEWS

  • New Study Reveals the Science Behind Exercise and Weight Loss

    New Study Reveals the Science Behind Exercise and Weight Loss

    95 shares
    Share 38 Tweet 24
  • New Study Indicates Children’s Risk of Long COVID Could Double Following a Second Infection – The Lancet Infectious Diseases

    94 shares
    Share 38 Tweet 24
  • Ohio State Study Reveals Protein Quality Control Breakdown as Key Factor in Cancer Immunotherapy Failure

    74 shares
    Share 30 Tweet 19
  • New Insights Suggest ALS May Be an Autoimmune Disease

    72 shares
    Share 29 Tweet 18

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

Extracellular Vesicles: Endometrial Cancer and Macrophage Dialogue

Innovative CFD Modeling for Recycling Creosote Railroad Ties

Weekly Insulin Icodec and Semaglutide Pharmacokinetics Compared

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 63 other subscribers
  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.