I've always thought of Andromeda as a distant cousin instead of a twin. You only hear from it when it needs money. Doesn't it have something like twice the number of satellite globulars that the Milky Way has? On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 11:05 PM, JayLEads <jayleads@gmail.com> wrote:
Well I was l looking over the news today and found a link to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. This is the link:
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/press/2009/pr200903.html
The article there states that "astronomers making high-precision measurements of the Milky Way say our Galaxy is rotating about 100,000 miles per hour faster than previously understood."
Basically the article states that the increase speed means the mass of the Milky Way is 50 percent greater, which brings the Milky Way even with Andromeda.
Their is also an article over at CBS News at
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/06/tech/main4700861.shtml? tag=topHome;topStories
Mark Reid, the study author states that the Milky Way is no longer the little sister of Andromeda, but the fraternal twin of Andromeda.
Also of interest is they now believe the Milky Way has four arms, not just two.