Mergers between Galaxies tagged posts

Mergers between Galaxies trigger activity in their Core

Two galaxies merging. Credit: Hubble Space Telescope

Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) play a major role in galaxy evolution. Astronomers from SRON and RuG have now used a record-setting sample of galaxies to confirm that galaxy mergers have a positive effect on igniting AGNs. They were able to compile about 10 times more pictures of merging galaxies than previous studies by using a machine-learning algorithm.

One of the bigger questions in astronomy is how galaxies evolve from clouds of gas and dust to the beautiful spiral structures observed in our galactic neighborhood. So-called active galactic nuclei (AGNs) comprise interesting research objects to answer part of the question, because there appears to be co-evolution between AGNs and galaxies...

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