ESA's Gaia Detects Unexpected Disruption in Milky Way

Advertisement
By Indo-Asian News Service | Updated: 20 September 2018 17:40 IST
ESA's Gaia Detects Unexpected Disruption in Milky Way

Photo Credit: ESA

The Milky Way galaxy is still enduring the effects of a near collision that likely took place sometime in the past 300-900 million years and set millions of stars moving like ripples in a pond, the European Space Agency (ESA) has said.

An analysis of the motions of six million stars in the Milky Way disc - one of the major components of our Galaxy - by ESA's star mapping mission Gaia, revealed an interesting and totally unexpected pattern.

One shape was a snail shell-like pattern in the graph that plotted the stars' altitude above or below the plane of the Galaxy against their velocity in the same direction.

"At the beginning the features were very weird to us," said lead researcher Teresa Antoja from the Universitat de Barcelona in Spain.

Advertisement

"I was a bit shocked and I thought there could be a problem with the data because the shapes are so clear," she added.

In the study, appearing in the journal Nature, Antoja and her team investigated what had "hit" the Milky Way to cause this behaviour in the stars.

Advertisement

They found that the unexpected rippling movements of stars in the Milky Way took place when the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy sailed past it between 300 and 900 million years ago.

This small galaxy contains a few tens of millions of stars and is currently in the process of being cannibalised by the Milky Way.

Advertisement

Its gravity, when passing closely by our Galaxy, would have perturbed some stars in our Galaxy like a stone dropping into water, Antoja said.

Gaia is one of ESA's cornerstone missions and was designed primarily to investigate the origin, evolution and structure of the Milky Way.

Gaia measures a three-dimensional movement of stars, using a combination of their position in space and their velocity.

 

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.

Further reading: ESA, Milky Way
Advertisement

Related Stories

Popular Mobile Brands
  1. Redmi Pad 2 With 11-Inch 2.5K Display, 9,000mAh Battery Launched in India
  2. iQOO Z10 Lite 5G With 6,000mAh Battery Launched in India: Price, Features
  3. Nothing Headphone 1 Price, Colour Options Leaked Ahead of Launch
  4. Vivo X200 FE Launch Date, Colours, and Design Revealed Ahead of Launch
  5. Apple Back to School Offer Brings Discounts on iPad Air, Other Products
  6. Government Announces FASTag-Based Annual Pass for Highway Commutes
  7. Nothing Phone 3 to Offer Longer Software Support Than Its Predecessor
  1. Nothing Phone 3 to Offer Longer Android and Security Update Support Than Its Predecessor
  2. Boat Wave Fortune Smartwatch With NFC Tap & Pay Feature, Bluetooth Calling Launched in India
  3. Government Announces FASTag-Based Annual Pass for Highway Commutes Priced at Rs. 3,000: See Benefits
  4. Adobe Firefly App for Android and iOS Announced, Offers AI-Powered Image and Video Tools
  5. Axiom-4 Mission Carrying Shubhanshu Shukla to International Space Station Postponed to June 22
  6. Bungie Delays Marathon, Says Will Reveal New Release Date This Fall
  7. Vivo T4 Ultra Now Available for Purchase in India: See Price, Offers, Specifications
  8. Infinix Note 50s 5G+ Now Available in a New 6GB RAM and 128GB Storage Variant in India
  9. Redmi K80 Ultra Design, Colours, and Key Features Revealed; to Get MediaTek Dimensity 9400+ SoC
  10. Xiaomi Mix Flip 2 Confirmed to Launch Later This Month With Leica-Branded Cameras
Gadgets 360 is available in
Download Our Apps
Available in Hindi
© Copyright Red Pixels Ventures Limited 2025. All rights reserved.