Milky way, galaxy collision

[HAL9000]

ESA’s Gaia mission has made a major breakthrough in unravelling the formation history of the Milky Way. Instead of forming alone, our Galaxy merged with another large galaxy early in its life, around 10 billion years ago

The remnants of this ancient collision were spotted because

• A small number of stars were moving in the wrong direction

and

• The colour and spectrum did not match other stars found in the milky way.

“Hiding in Plain Sight” –Milky Way’s Ancient Merger With Fossil Galaxy Gaia-Enceladus | The Daily Galaxy

The galaxy which collided with the milky way is being called....

The astronomers called this galaxy Gaia-Enceladus after one of the Giants in ancient Greek mythology, who was the offspring of Gaia, the Earth, and Uranus, the Sky.

Galactic ghosts: Gaia uncovers major event in the formation of the Milky Way

“The collection of stars we found with Gaia has all the properties of what you would expect from the debris of a galactic merger,” says Amina, lead author of the paper published today in Nature.

In other words, the collection is what they expected from stars that were once part of another galaxy and have been consumed by the Milky Way. The stars now form most of our Galaxy’s inner halo – a diffuse component of old stars that were born at early times and now surround the main bulk of the Milky Way known as the central bulge and disc.

 

[twentythreedom]

Far out, man

 

[passenger]

Great post will read more later

 

[sheothebudworths]

Galactic bulge