The Milky Way devoured a smaller galaxy about 11.8 billion years ago
The Milky Way, a spiral-shaped galaxy housing hundreds of billions of stars such as our sun, underwent a significant transformation around 11.8 billion years ago, according to new research. This milestone was the galaxy's initial galactic merger, where it absorbed a smaller galaxy, approximately 15 percent of the universe's current age.
The merging entity, classified as a dwarf galaxy, was named Low-energy-Kraken-Heracles (LKH). LKH contained stars with a mass equivalent to 500 million times that of the sun, roughly a quarter of the Milky Way's size at the time. The research utilized the Hubble and Gaia telescopes to study stellar clusters in the Milky Way's innermost region, spanning 20,000 light-years.
The merger provided the Milky Way with a substantial amount of stars, interstellar gas, and dark matter that fueled star formation and contributed to its growth. The Milky Way has experienced two other significant mergers, with Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus and the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy, shaping the formation of our solar system and Earth.
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