Dynamical friction video (VIDEO)

Estonian Research Council

Caption

The green dot represents a galaxy, and the upper panels show the movement of dark matter particles past the galaxy (if a galaxy exists in the corresponding panel). The lower panels show the shape of all the trajectories, demonstrating that the gravity field of a galaxy affects the particles of matter, creating an overdensity behind the galaxy. Overdensity again slows down the galaxy and distorts its shape.

Credit

Rain Kipper

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CC BY-SA Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike International license

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