A team of researchers from Italy and the Netherlands noticed a small galaxy near the Milky Way
They noted that almost all majorgalaxies such as our own Milky Way were formed by merging with smaller galaxies. In recent years, thanks to the satellite Gaia, they have found evidence that the Milky Way expanded in the same way. An Italian-Dutch group of researchers wanted to prove the hypothesis that small galaxies, in turn, are composed of even smaller ones.
Based on the chemical composition of the galaxy NGC 2005,the researchers concluded that the cluster was a relic of a small galaxy in which stars formed rather slowly. Billions of years ago, this small galaxy was supposed to merge with the then small Large Magellanic Cloud. Over time, part of the small galaxy exploded, most of the stars dispersed, but the central cluster NGC 2005 remained.
“In fact, we are seeing a relic of an earliermergers. And we have convincingly demonstrated for the first time that small galaxies adjacent to the Milky Way, in turn, were formed from even smaller galaxies, ”the researchers noted.
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