Simulation of Virgo Radial Merger creating shell structure in the Milky Way
This video shows an N-body simulation of a dwarf galaxy crashing through the center of the Milky Way galaxy. This smaller galaxy is ripped apart and its stars are flung into the halo of the Milky Way, creating shell structure. This shell structure, which was the first discovered in the Milky Way galaxy, was used to determine that the dwarf galaxy broadsided our galaxy 2.7 billion years ago (Donlon+2020, https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.08764). This research was funded by the National Science Foundation.
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