IAA-CSIC: History of Andromeda Galaxy Studied Through Stellar Remains

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IAA-CSIC: History of Andromeda Galaxy Studied Through Stellar Remains

Post by bystander » Wed Dec 16, 2015 6:33 pm

History of Andromeda Galaxy Studied Through Stellar Remains
Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia | 2015 Dec 16

Planetary nebulae, stars similar to the Sun which have burnt up their fuel and ejected their external layers, make it possible to study two main substructures of the Andromeda galaxy
[img3="Andromeda galaxy, with the approximate location of its main substructures, the Northern Spur and the Giant Stream (down, right)."]http://www.iaa.es/sites/default/files/u4/andromeda.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]
The Andromeda galaxy (or M31) is the massive galaxy nearest to us, and it is an excellent laboratory to study the characteristics and the history of great galactic spirals such as our own Milky Way. An international group of researchers headed by the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC) has used the Gran Telescopio Canarias to study a sample of planetary nebulae situated inside the two main substructures of M31 and has found that they could be the result of an interaction between Andromeda and its satellite galaxies.

"We know that voluminous galaxies grow by absorbing minor galaxies, and that vestiges of those fusions can be found in external regions of galaxies in the form of tails or streams of stars,” says Xuan Fang, researcher at IAA-CSIC in charge of the project. The study of the chemical composition and the motion of these stars can yield valuable data about the formative history of the galaxy.”

"A little over a decade ago substructures were discovered on Andromeda which could be leftovers from its formative process and its interaction with other nearby galaxies. Since we are dealing with very weak substructures whose stars it is very difficult to study, we resort to observing planetary nebulae, which can be detected over a weak background” says Rubén García Benito, researcher at IAA-CSIC involved in the study. ...

Chemical Abundances of Planetary Nebulae in the Substructures of M31 - Xuan Fang et al
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