Andromeda 'born in a collision'

[Slimebeast]

highwaystar101 said:

Slimebeast said:

That's ridiculous and highly unlikely. This theory and simulation will be debunked once we understand more about dark matter.

Why do scientists always pretend to know much more than they actually do and the press boosts that further? Pisses me off.

 

Why is a galaxy merger ridiculous and highly unlikely? We've observed many galaxies that are currently in the process of merging (link).

Anyway, you do have a good point, the simulation may be debunked once we understand a little more about dark matter. And no doubt more accurate simulations will be conducted in the future that will show what was wrong or inaccurate with this one. That's kind of how science works. I'm sure the scientists behind this simulation don't think this is the be all and end all of our knowledge on how Andromeda formed, just a significant step in our understanding.

However, the point of this simulation was to learn more about our local group of galaxies and the simulation's findings showed that many of the properties of Andromeda could be explained with the merging of galaxies. I think it's fair game to report on.

-Edit-

I'm not really in the mood to debate about this right now I'm afraid, sorry Slimebeast.

That's a much more modest way to put it. A statement based on facts only.

Let's not debate, no.