The Sagitarrius Dwarf: [Previous Page]

As we pier closely using new telescopes like the Hubble Space telescope, we see evidence that very big galaxies have been cannibalizing their small neighbors.

A search on google revealed these news stories:

• CNN report on NGC 1316
• BBC News on Andromeda
• Even our own Galaxy is practicing Galactic cannibalism!

In 1994, astronomers found a new galaxy in the direction of Sagittarius. It's currently colliding with our Milky Way galaxy! It was found based on the "streaming motions" of an enormous group of stars. Two globular clusters, which had never quite fit the characteristics of other globular clusters in our own galaxy, have now been found to be from the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy.



The path and eventual destruction of the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy This is a picture of how this distortion might have occured. The dwarf galaxy, initially a ball of stars (at the top of the picture), falls towards the Milky Way along the dashed line and is torn apart by immense tidal forces. The stars ripped from the dwarf spread out in long streamers along its path. Click here for links to an animation of a similar simulation.