OMEGA Centauri, the largest and most massive cluster of stars in the Galaxy,
may be the victim of cosmic cannibalism. Computer simulations by astronomers in
Italy suggest it was once a dwarf galaxy, but was gobbled up by the Milky
Way.
Giovanni Carraro of the Astronomical Observatory of Padua and Cesario Lia of
the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste simulated the evolution
of a massive gas cloud into millions of stars through successive periods of star
formation. When the resulting dwarf galaxy is captured by a nearby galaxy like
the Milky Way, the results look strikingly similar to…
