Abstract

This report encompasses the use of GADGET-2, a computer program for N-body simulation and smoothed-particle hydrodynamics (SPH), to analyze the collision of the Milky Way and a smaller disk galaxy 10 billion years ago. The product of this collision is present-day dwarf galaxies. The simulation is based on a mass ratio of 4 to 1 for the colliding galaxies, with one million particles in each one, and an impact parameter of 6 kpc, for a parabolic orbit. The results demonstrate the effect of tidal forces between the galaxies as the smaller galaxy is destroyed by the impact. The debris of the destruction precedes to orbit the parent galaxy in a perpendicular plane similar to the spatial distribution shown by the satellite galaxies of the Milky Way.