Andromeda galaxy
CU Boulder researchers have discovered a mechanism that explains the persistence of asymmetrical stellar clusters surrounding supermassive black holes in some galaxies and suggests that during post-galactic merger periods, orbiting stars could be flung into the black hole and destroyed at a rate of one per year.
A supermassive black hole’s gravity creates a nuclear star cluster surrounding it, which gravitational physics would expect to be spherically symmetric. However, several galaxies – including nearby Andromeda – have been observed with an asymmetrical star cluster that takes the form of a disk instead. Eccentric disks are suspected to be formed in the wake of a recent merger between two gas-rich galaxies.
Within the disk, each star follows an elliptical orbit that re...
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