"Size" doesn't really matter. Number of stars is what matters. And that number is not going to be significantly changed by this discovery.
Quote:
|
the spiral galaxy, so close to Earth that it appeared as a fuzzy blob to the ancients
|
But it doesn't appear to us as that anymore? Ummm...
If anything the blob is getting less fuzzy (though not appreciably), considering Andromeda is blue-shifted.
My opinion is that while perhaps you can call these stars part of the galaxy, they are not part of the galaxy "proper", as it were. Because they are obviously not part of the spiral arms of the galaxy itself but are due to a collision of galaxies resulting in the formation of an irregular galaxy that has been caught by the gravity of Andromeda. I think given another 100 million years or so these stars will be drawn into the spiral arms themselves.