We study galaxies drawn from the semi-analytic models of Guo et al. (2011) based on the Millennium Simulation. We establish a set of four observationally measurable parameters which can be used in combination to identify a subset of galaxy groups which are old, with a very high probability. We therefore argue that a sample of fossil groups selected based on the luminosity gap will result in a contaminated sample of old galaxy groups. By adding constraints on the luminosity of the brightest galaxy, and its offset from the group luminosity centroid, we can considerably improve the age-dating.

We use the millennium simulation for studying the evolution of groups of galaxies over time. We find fossil and non-fossil groups as well as old and young groups at redshift z = 0 and follow them back in time to investigate the evolution of their parameters, such as mass assembly, luminosity gap and halo mass concentration. We find that fossils assemble a larger fraction of their mass at z = 0 than controls. The magnitude gaps between fossil and non-fossil groups are not the same because of major and minor mergers, in old and young groups as well. We also find that WMAP1 and WMAP7 cosmologies lead to the same evolutionary history for fossil and control groups.

NGC147 and NGC185, paired satellites of the Andromeda galaxy, possess the same order of mass and analogous structures, but they show dierent star formation and different amounts of interstellar gas and dust. Therefore, we present the first reconstruction of the star formation history of NGC147 and NGC185. Asymptotic Giant Branch stars are highly evolved stars that are brightest in K-band. This maximum K-band magnitude is related to the birth mass of stars. As a result, we have found a 9.9 Gyrold single star formation epoch for NGC185 followed by relatively continuous star formation. NGC147, however, has passed through two star formation episodes; one is as old as ~6 Gyr and the other is as recent as 850 Myr. Asymptotic Giant Branch stars are also important dust factories; by fitting Spectral Energy Distributions to observed near and mid infrared data for each star, we were able to measure the dust production rates of individual stars; on order of 10-5M⊙yr-1. Hence, we estimate the total mass entering the interstellar medium to be 1.06 X 10-4M⊙ yr-1 and 2.89 X 10-4M⊙ yr-1 for NGC147 and NGC185.