Indian priest discovers long lost galaxy

Fr. Richard D’Souza, an Indian Catholic priest and astrophysics researcher found conclusive evidence of a long lost galaxy, along with fellow researcher Eric Bell.

This galaxy is supposedly the third biggest galaxy after Andromeda and the Milky Way. D’Souza and Bell published their findings in a journal ‘Nature Astronomy’ D’Souza is from Goa’s Mapusa town.

He is a Jesuit priest and is a staff astronomer of the Vatican observatory in Rome. Presently, he is pursuing his post-doctoral research at the University of Michigan’s Department of Astronomy.

Around two billion years ago, Andromeda the largest galaxy in our celestial neighborhood “shredded and cannibalised” a galaxy named M32p. M32p is identified as the third largest group of galaxies.

“Over the course of its lifetime, Andromeda is thought to have merged with hundreds of smaller galaxies,” D’Souza said ,”This project was a big risk, but I am glad it paid off. The main thing is that we learned a lot and we had great fun doing the project D’Souza and Bell used computer models to piece together their evidence.