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How would we know a particular star belongs to Andromeda rather than the Milky way if, as the article suggests, there is already some overlap between the two ga
by simonblack 4y ago
How would we know a particular star belongs to Andromeda rather than the Milky way if, as the article suggests, there is already some overlap between the two galaxies?
- kjs3 4y agoIANAA, but I think they're handwaving a bit about ownership, and the real point of the discovery is that there are stars in a place that we'd previously thought there would be a gap between galaxies. The money quote is: "“It challenges the notion that galaxies are islands with big, empty space between them,” GuhaThakurta told Astronomy. “There's this whole idea of Immanuel Kant — island universes was what he called galaxies. It's challenging that idea.” “I won’t be surprised if there are a few dozens of stars which are being contested by the two galaxies,” Feng added."