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Milky Way primordial galactic merger discovery

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2026-08-23 16:41 UTC → 2026-08-26 04:18 UTC · added removed

Astrophysicists have identified evidence of a primordial galactic merger within the inner regions of the Milky Way. Using data from the Hubble Space Telescope, the Euclid space telescope, and ESA’s Gaia mission, researchers conducted cosmic archaeology by analyzing the age, chemical composition, and trajectories of globular clusters. The study, published in Nature Astronomy and led by Davide Massari, indicates this merger occurred approximately 11.8 billion years ago, roughly 2 billion years after the Big Bang. This event predates the previously documented Gaia-Enceladus impact by about 1.8 billion years. The absorbed dwarf galaxy has been galaxy, named Low-energy-Kraken-Heracles (LKH). Researchers estimate LKH (LKH), possessed a stellar mass equivalent to roughly 500 million suns, contributing significant stars, gas, and dark matter to the infant Milky Way. This mass represented representing approximately a quarter of the Milky Way’s total mass at that time. Much of this material is now concentrated within Newer research from the innermost 20,000 light-years National Institute for Astrophysics (Inaf) as part of the Carma project suggests these findings address a period of uncertainty in galactic center, helping to shape history, showing that foundational building blocks were incorporated much earlier than previously understood. Scientists have noted that stars in the galaxy’s early structure and its inner core. By analyzing 39 peripheral regions of globular clusters within the inner 20,000 light-years preserve traces of the these earliest interactions. In related developments regarding galactic core, astronomers identified a distinct population of stars that did not originate within our galaxy. While stars themselves rarely collide due to vast interstellar distances, structure, research published in ‘Astronomy and Astrophysics’ has utilized data from the interaction of gas clouds during Gaia satellite, the merger likely triggered new star formation and deposited significant amounts of gas Lamost telescope, and dark matter, helping the Apogee spectrograph to shape define the galaxy's early structure physical limits. By analyzing over 100,000 celestial bodies, researchers estimated the distance to the galactic edge to be between 11.28 and its inner core. 12.15 kiloparsecs, suggesting a total galactic diameter of up to approximately 100,000 light-years.

Versions

  1. 2026-08-26 04:18 UTC Milky Way primordial galactic merger discovery
  2. 2026-08-23 16:41 UTC Milky Way primordial galactic merger discovery
  3. 2026-08-22 15:12 UTC Milky Way primordial galactic merger discovery
  4. 2026-08-19 17:03 UTC Milky Way primordial galactic merger discovery
  5. 2026-08-19 03:58 UTC Milky Way primordial galactic merger discovery

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