The large Magellanic cloud (LMC) will absorb Small (IMO) due to the tidal destruction before both star clusters will become part of the milky Way. Devoted to the study of astrophysics Preprint from Chile, Brazil and Italy published on the website arXiv.org.
In the article, devoted to the study of the Large and Small Magellanic clouds, scientists have challenged the classic scenario of the evolution close to the milky Way dwarf galaxies, according to which they separately will be absorbed by the Milky Way. Previously, scientists have known that about five percent of LMC stars rotate in the same direction as the luminary in an MMO.
Their findings are based on recently obtained data on steelness (content in stars elements heavier than helium) and age of light IMO and the LMC, which increased the previously known sample. In particular, astrophysicists have calculated these parameters for a scattered cluster NGC 152, located in the IMO and adopted in the study for reference.
Age and gradient steelness NGC 152 is 2.6±0.6 billion years and -0,19±0,09, respectively. These data are consistent with models that allow gradual absorption of heavy galaxy (OME) easier (IMO). One of the last artifacts of this development is the existence of clusters of 6 Brück, whose age is 130±40 million years. The IMO is at a distance of 200 thousand light-years from Earth, and LMC — 160 thousand. Star clusters in seven and ten billion times heavier than the Sun, respectively. After about four billion years the galaxies will become part of the milky Way, and after five billion years their will devour Andromeda, which is in the hundreds of billions of times heavier than the sun.
