Scientists Discover We Might Already Be Touching the Andromeda Galaxy

Similar to how people create a-haze of smoke around a fire they make when it is freezing outside, galaxy also has a similar gas cloud or a halo as it is called usually referred to as the circumgalactic medium (CGM). This massive halo holds about 70% of the luminous matter of the galaxy For all this distribution is extensive, the normal morphology of the CGM is still not well elucidated hence establishing where one galaxy’s halo ends and the other begins is not well defined.

A recent observation of a single galaxy about 270 million years light away led to understanding the way in which the CGM and the luminous disc of the galaxy interacted, and it is presumed that the Milky way can also extend much further than what people have anticipated.

This could suggest that the Astronomers’ long heralded collision of the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy is already under way—at least insofar as it can be ascertained from the merging of the two circumgalactic mediums.

Using the Keck Cosmic Web Imager, astronomers of Australia and the US were able to take images of the small spiral galactic structure called IRAS08 which is also known as IRAS 08339+6517. As compared to other previous investigations that depended on light emitted by feeding black holes within other galaxies – which gave an incomplete look into the CGM – this study embraced a wider field, approximately 90,000 light-years beyond the galaxy’s luminous disc.

In the empty space, the team identified that there is actually a lot of neutral hydrogen gas and filaments linking IRAS08 to the small neighboring galaxy through the cosmic web. They were particularly surprised to see that hydrogen which had its electrons taken away from it was present far away beyond the cosmic threads mingled with oxygen.

a quote from the lead author Nikole Nielsen, the astrophysicist from Swinburne University of Australia: “We found this hydrogen everywhere we looked which was thrilling, and which was surprising. ”

Much like outside of our galaxy, atoms are heated either by starlight or rarely colliding with other atoms. Montering av spectral information allowed the researchers to determine changes in ionization density at thousands of light-years and they noticed a gradual decrease in the influence of starlight from the source IRAS08.

‘According to Nielsen in the CGM the gas is heated by things which cannot be attributed to typical conditions in the galaxy including emissions from the collective galaxies in the universe as well as some shocks. ’

They found not only a more accurate definition of whatkind of objects are considered galaxies, but how the vast sea of the remaining ‘haze’ and all cosmic phenomena are interconnected and transform in space and time. Because of our location in the Milky Way, it is difficult to estimate the size of the galaxy, however, based on the results that indicate that the gas surrounding our galaxy may already merge with the halo of the nearest neighbor.

“It look s unlikely that it is not already occurring so the CGMs of the Milky Way and Andromeda are possibly already overlapping and interacting,” Nielsen concluded.

This research was published in Nature Astronomy.

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