Friday

The position, velocity, and chemical composition of each star provide clues to the evolutionary history of galaxies. While the Gaia mission has offered invaluable information about the Milky Way, it is crucial we also look into stellar fossils in external galaxies. The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) is an ideal candidate for this task thanks to its proximity, making it possible for individual stars to be resolved and its inclination angle. Our position outside of this galaxy is ideal for investigating its dark matter halo.
This poster presents a novel galactic archaeological tool that exploits stars harvested in M31 and its satellite galaxies to understand the galaxy's accretion history and accumulation of dark matter.