Monday, August 17, 2026
Science

Hubble solves merger mystery from Milky Way's early years

Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, grew to its current size in part by consuming smaller galaxies. Now, new data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope show definitive evidence of a dwarf galaxy merging with the young Milky Way in the earliest phases of its evolution. This finding extends our knowledge of...

Hubble solves merger mystery from Milky Way's early years
Image: Phys.org
Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, grew to its current size in part by consuming smaller galaxies. Now, new data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope show definitive evidence of a dwarf galaxy merging with the young Milky Way in the earliest phases of its evolution. This finding extends our knowledge of our galaxy's history 1.8 billion years farther back in time than before. The results are published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Originally published at Phys.org

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