What remains of an ancient galaxy swallowed by the Milky Way, the galaxy of which we are a part, are observed.

The cosmic event was verified 10 billion years ago, when the universe was still young, in the first 4 billion years of its life.

The galaxy called Loki has left behind 20 ancient stars and a lot of metal dust, which orbits unusually close to the disk. which is the central area of the Milky Way and where most of the stars are concentrated, including our Sun.

The discovery was published in the scientific journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and is the result of the work of the University of Bologna, Florence, Turin and coordinated by the British University of Hertfordshire.

The data where the chemical signature of these 20 ancient stars, once part of Loki, was discovered. have been analyzed with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope positioned on top of the Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii.

Some of them move in the same direction as the Milky Way, while some orbit completely in the opposite.

From here their history has been reconstructed on the computer, and it turns out that the galaxy Loki was swallowed by the Milky Way at a very young age about 10 billion years ago, when it was not yet nor stabilized on a spinning disk.

Source: prizrenpost