Our galaxy's largest nearby companion is the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a dwarf galaxy visible to the naked eye in the Southern Hemisphere.
In recent years, new theoretical research and better observational capabilities have taught astronomers a great deal about our neighbor."It was long assumed that our galaxy lives a quiet life of a hermit, with the nearest 'big' neighbor being Andromeda some 800 kiloparsecs away," says Eugene Vasiliev of the University of Cambridge.
Because the Milky Way isn't rigid, but rather made up of stars, dust, gas, and rock in varying densities, parts of the galaxy closer to the LMC were affected more than distant parts. Researchers, therefore, need to rely on models to fill in the gaps: they make predictions about the distant parts of the galaxy based on what we know about the nearer parts.
These stripe patterns are believed to be the traces left behind by long-dead galaxies that merged with the Milky Way in the ancient past, like the hypothesizedWhen the LMC passed near to the Milky Way in the more recent past, it should have left distortions in those stripes, and that's what astronomers like Vasiliev are hoping to find.
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The Milky Way has Trapped the Large Magellanic Cloud With its Gravity. What Comes Next?Our galaxy’s largest nearby companion is the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a dwarf galaxy visible to the naked eye in the Southern Hemisphere. In recent years, new theoretical research and better observational capabilities have taught astronomers a great deal about our (not-so-little) neighbour. It’s becoming increasingly clear that the LMC is helping shape the Milky … Continue reading 'The Milky Way has Trapped the Large Magellanic Cloud With its Gravity. What Comes Next?'
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