Could M31 be the result of a major merger?

Could M31 be the result of a major merger?

Blog Article

We investigated a scenario in which M31 could be the remnant of a gas-rich major merger.Galaxy merger simulations, highly constrained by observations, were run using GADGET 2 in order to reproduce M31.We succeeded in reproducing the global shape of M31, the thin disk and Antenna Socket the bulge, and in addition some of the main M31 large-scale features, such as the thick disk, the 10 kpc ring and the Giant Stream.

This lead to a new explanation of the Planter Giant Stream which could be caused by tidal tail stars that have been captured by the galaxy potential.