video: The cyan dots, collectively, represent the satellite. The Milky Way galaxy is at the intersection of the pink dashed lines (center of the animation). The evolved time in giga years is shown on the left top corner of the animation. In this video we see the satellite, under the gravitational influence of the host (the Milky Way), revolves around the center of mass of the host. The satellite loses most of its mass after few passages. This is called tidal stripping. If the satellite gets completely destroyed through this process, it is called tidal disruption. The whole simulation is run for 10 giga years; this animation is composed of 100 snapshots. view more
Credit: Omid Sameie.