Bigger Galaxy Eats Smaller Neighbor

Mr.Happy3050 writes "CNN is reporting here that the large galaxy Centarus A absorbed a smaller neighboring galaxy 200-400 million years ago. The absorption created a line of blue stars thousand of light-years across."

Comments

A question

[Syncdata]

I was of the understanding that, were two galaxies to cross through each other's paths, that it would be more or less clean, due to the sheer ammount of space in comparison to the matter in the galaxies.

Re:A question

[drudd]

It is true that none (or very few) of the stars which make up the two galaxies will collide. But the gas will collide (often leading to starformation, or the stripping of gas from galaxies).

Also, all components are interacting gravitationally, so the structure of the galaxies does not survive "cleanly." Instead there are very interesting features, tidal tails, spherical shells, and usually the major fractions of the two galaxies settle down into a single system very different from the two progenitors (assuming the two initial galaxies are roughly the same size).

Doug