Galactic Cannibalism and Mergers

A brief introduction to cannibalism and the body of the universe:

Galactic cannibalism is a process whereby a large galaxy merges with a smaller galaxy through tidal
gravitational interactions, to form a larger often more irregular galaxy, and it has dictated the
structure of the universe since the Big Bang. Well not quite the big bang, more adept would be to
say since the first galaxies were formed, around 1 billion years after the big bang.

Currently there are two leading theories on what was going on before this; one putting forward the
idea that there were large clouds of gas and dust which slowly clumped together, and the spin of this
cloud determined the type of galaxy. The other suggests that the young universe contained many
small “lumps of matter”, which came together to form galaxies.

The universe contains many organised

structures on many different scales. The Earth
and our solar system are examples of a small
system, a universe containing trillions of stars
may seem big especially compared to us
however there are extremely large structures
containing billions of galaxies.

The Local Group:

Our galaxy lies within the Local Group, a

collection of at least 80 galaxies, with most
being dwarf galaxies. It includes the
Andromeda galaxy with almost twice as many
stars compared to the Milky Way. 1 trillion
stars and half a trillion stars, respectively.

https://cosmos.astro.caltech.edu/system/media_files/binaries/20/large/hubble-seq.jpg?1434443184

Both galaxies have several smaller satellite galaxies with

Andromeda’s, M32 and M1101 and the Milky Way’s, Large
and Small Magellanic clouds. The one with most
significance being the Large Magellanic cloud. It is around
163,000 light-years away and around 1/100 th the size.

Currently the Milky Way is in the process of cannibalising

at least three different smaller galaxies. One being the
Sagittarius dwarf galaxy which we are in the final stage of https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/review/satellite-galaxies/large-
mag.en.jpg

consuming. Over the past billion years, the Milky way has absorbed and dispersed half of its stars
and nearly all its clouds of gas.2 Another two galaxies the Milky Way is in the process of cannibalising
are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. The evidence for this is the streams of hydrogen arching
from these galaxies to the Milky Way. The Large Magellanic cloud is estimated to be consumed in 2.4
billion years. This estimation is based on The Eagle Project 3.

The Milky Way gets its comeuppance:

However, the Milky Way has some competition in the Local Group, with the Andromeda Galaxy. Due
to its size its set to merge with the Milky Way; Until recently the merger between M31 (Andromeda
Galaxy) and the Milky Way was due to take place in about 5 Billion years, but new research
published in the Astrophysical Journal in 2020 presents evidence for the merger to have already
begun.4

This data has come from Project AMIGA, which uses the Hubble Space Telescope to look at the
deep-space surroundings of M31. AMIGA stands for Absorption Map of Ionized Gas in Andromeda.

The astronomers measured the size of the halo of M31

by looking at how light from background quasars had
been absorbed by it. A halo is characteristic of galaxies
and consists of gas, dust, and stray stars, however they
are very faint and so are hard to detect. Even harder is
detecting our own galaxies halo due to our vantage
point in our galaxy, so its is assumed that our halo is
close to M31’s halo, due to similarities between the
two galaxies.

https://earthsky.org/upl/2020/08/andromedas_halo_if_we_could_see_it.jpg

Doing this they found that M31’s halo stretches much further beyond the visible boundaries of the
galaxy previously known. It extends as far as half the distance to our Milky Way (1.3 million light-
years) and even further in other directions.

Ignoring the halo, the main bulk of M31 is 2.5 million light years away from us.

Conservation of momentum:

Throughout these collisions total momentum before and after will remain equal, as the sum of each
individual component’s momentum.

pbefore = pafter

ptotal = pMW + pM31

P = mv
If we take the Milky Way’s velocity as 0 m/s we can state that M31 is moving towards MW at 70 m/s 5 or
110km/s. Similarly, we could let M31’s velocity equal 0 m/s and the MW’s velocity at 70m/s moving
towards M31.

Next, we need the mass of both MW and M31. The mass of galaxies is measured in solar mass M ☉.
One M☉ is (1.98847 +/- 0.00007) x 1030kg and is approximately equal to the mass of the sun.

AS the mass of the sun cannot be directly measured it is calculated from other factors.

The mass of the Milky Way is (0.8) ×1012 M☉.6 And the mass of M31 is (1.5+/-0.5) ×1012 M☉.

With these velocities and masses, we can calculate the total momentum after the collision and
galactic cannibalism has taken place. (0.8 x10 12 M☉)

mtotal x vtotal = (mMW x vMW) + (mM31 x vM31)

mtotal x vtotal = (0.8 x1012 M☉) x (0m/s) + (1.5 ×1012 M☉) x (70m/s)

ptotal = 1.05 x1014

1: Smale, 2020, The Cosmic Distance Scale, ASD,

https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/features/cosmic/local_group_info.html

2: Wall, 2012, Milky Way's Galactic Gobbling Leaves Star 'Crumbs’, Future US Inc,
https://www.space.com/13815-milky-sagittarius-dwarf-galaxy-star-streams.html

3: http://icc.dur.ac.uk/Eagle/

4: Lehner, 2020, Project AMIGA: The Circumgalatic Medium of Andromeda, 1, The Astrophysical
Journal

5: Cain, 2015, Why is Andromeda coming toward us?, Universe today, https://phys.org/news/2015-
01-andromeda.html

6: McMillian ,2017, The mass distribution and gravitational potential of the Milky Way., Monthly
Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 465, Issue 1, p.76-94,
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017MNRAS.465...76M/abstract

7: Kafle, 2018, The need for speed: escape velocity and dynamical mass measurements of the
Andromeda galaxy, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 475, Issue 3,
p.4043-4054, https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018MNRAS.475.4043K/abstract