Milky Way Swallowed Dwarf Galaxy Nearly 11.8 Billion Years Ago
Researchers identified globular clusters from a dwarf galaxy merger that helped build the Milky Way and involved about 500 million solar masses.
- Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope discovered evidence that the Milky Way swallowed a dwarf galaxy named Low-energy-Kraken-Heracles roughly 11.8 billion years ago, representing the galaxy's earliest-known merger.
- Our galaxy has grown for billions of years by absorbing smaller neighbors, including the Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus galaxy about 10 billion years ago and the ongoing merger with the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy.
- Lead author Davide Massari of the Astrophysics and Space Science Observatory of Bologna and his team analyzed 39 globular clusters using Hubble data, achieving "unprecedented precision" in measuring the age and chemical content of these clusters.
- This finding settles long-standing debates regarding whether ancient stars in the galactic center grew natively or immigrated, proving that LKH infused the young Milky Way with significant volumes of stars and interstellar gas.
- Researchers plan to continue scouring globular clusters for evidence of other ancient events, with Dr. Massari noting "as we probe more of the galaxy and we get more data, then we might be able to recover evidence" for additional mergers.
24 Articles
24 Articles
Milky Way Swallowed Dwarf Galaxy Nearly 11.8 Billion Years Ago
Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have found definitive evidence that the young Milky Way swallowed a dwarf galaxy just two billion years after the Big Bang, revealing one of the earliest major mergers in the history of our Galaxy. The Milky Way today is a massive spiral galaxy home to hundreds of billions […] The post Milky Way Swallowed Dwarf Galaxy Nearly 11.8 Billion Years Ago appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science …
The Milky Way Merged With Another Galaxy In The Distant Past, 1.8 Billion Years Before Its Collision With The Infamous Sausage Galaxy
The Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered evidence of a new and earlier collision from a time when we thought all the Milky Way's stars were its own.
The Economic Times
Times of IndiaOur Milky Way devoured a galaxy 11.8 billion years ago. Another crash may happen in 4.5 billion years
The Milky Way swallowed a smaller dwarf galaxy about 11.8 billion years ago, marking the earliest known merger in its history. Scientists used Hubble and Gaia observations to trace stars linked to the ancient galaxy, named Low-energy-Kraken-Heracles. The Milky Way later absorbed other galaxies and may collide with Andromeda in about 4.5 billion years.
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