Cracking the Mystery of the Sinister 'Evil Eye' Galaxy

Astronomers have discovered that the outer disk of the Evil Eye galaxy, also known as M64, came from a smaller, gas-rich satellite dwarf galaxy that M64 recently cannibalized and wrapped itself in. The discovery could give us a glimpse into the future of our own Milky Way galaxy, as estimates of the mass and contents of the shredded satellite suggest that it was remarkably similar to the Small Magellanic Cloud, a Milky Way satellite dwarf galaxy that will one day be subsumed into the larger mass. The findings suggest that M64's unique counter-rotating disk was a recent merger with a gas-rich satellite very similar to the Small Magellanic Cloud.