The Elliptical Galaxy formerly known as the Local Group: Merging the globular cluster systems.

This work was done under the supervision of Duncan Forbes at Birmingham University, UK. It was a literature search for observations of globular clusters in the galaxies of the Local Group, which could be combined with a large sample of M31 globulars provided by Pauline Barmby to study the properties of the sample of all globular clusters in the Local Group. In this way we "simulated" the merger of the Local Group into one big elliptical galaxy (which is believed to be going to happen in about 10 billion years so don't worry!). Globular clusters, being relatively compact systems are believed to be able to survive such a merger and so while it's possible that more GCs might form, it is expected at least that all of the existing ones will still be there. We compared the sample with those from actual ellipticals to see how similar/different they were. The result of the project was a paper: The Elliptical Galaxy formerly known as the Local Group: merging the globular cluster systems".