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The Indian Catholic priest and astrophysics researcher who found conclusive evidence of a long-lost galaxy, the third largest after Andromeda and the Milky Way, said that like many others before he almost gave up the search.
Speaking of the Hindustan Times of the University of Michigan in the United States, where he made the discovery, Father Richard D'Souza said the trip seemed destined for disappointment until That they make the breakthrough.
"People had given up on that and moved on to other problems, we continued to walk, and finally we had a breakthrough, realized that we had to unlearn and give up so much things we thought we knew, "said Father Souza.
Part of the problem was that a galaxy like Andromeda must have consumed hundreds of its smaller companions. The researchers thought that would make it difficult to learn from any of them.
More importantly, this discovery and its method will now pave the way for the discovery of other galaxies that have been cannibalized by other larger galaxies.
"We knew we could retrieve information from existing data, but it also gave us a way to solve similar problems with other galaxies," he said.
Although many accompanying galaxies were consumed by Andromeda, most of the stars in Andromeda's weak halo were mainly contributed by shredding a single large galaxy.
D'Souza, a Jesuit priest from the city of Goa Mapusa Astronomer badigned to the Vatican Observatory in Rome, he is currently pursuing his postdoctoral research at the Department of Astronomy of the United States. University of Michigan.
With fellow researcher Eric Bell, he found conclusive evidence of a galaxy called M32p that was "shredded and cannibalized" by the galactic neighbor of the Milky Way, Andromeda, there are about two billion d & rsquo; # 39; years.
This disturbed galaxy was the third largest member of the local group of galaxies, after the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxies. Using computer models, D'Souza and Bell were able to piece together this evidence, revealing this long-lost brother. Their findings were published in in Nature Astronomy earlier this month.
Discovering and studying this decimated galaxy will help astronomers understand how disk galaxies like the Milky Way evolve and survive large mergers.
"This project was a big risk, but I'm glad it has paid off. The main thing is that we learned a lot, and we had a lot of fun doing the project, "he said.
Their discovery could alter the traditional understanding of the evolution of galaxies. The duo realized that the Andromeda disc had survived an impact with a mbadive galaxy, which questioned the common wisdom that such interactions would destroy the discs and form an elliptical galaxy.
The timing of the melting may also explain the Andromeda galaxy's disk thickening as well as a star-forming burst two billion years ago. , a discovery that was independently achieved by French researchers at the beginning of the year.
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