The “Galactic Merger Tree”

Description

Artistic rendering of the “merger tree” of a galaxy. Galaxies in the Universe assemble from the merger of their less-massive progenitors. In this rendering, each slice along the *z*-axis represents an image of a galaxy at a given time. As times goes on (from top to bottom), smaller satellites galaxies spiral around the central one, creating these branch-like structures. The slices are extracted from an actual simulation of the Universe.