The most ancient “building blocks” of our galaxy.

The early history of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, is a history of the merger of smaller galaxies, from which fairly large “building blocks” were formed.

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Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (Germany) have identified what may be the remains of two ancient building blocks. The press service of the university reports this.

For astronomers, this result is equivalent to finding traces of a primitive settlement that grew into a large modern city, the article notes.

We are talking about two protogalactic fragments that merged with an early version of our Milky Way between 12 and 13 billion years ago – at the very beginning of the era of galaxy formation in the Universe.

The components, named Shakti and Shiva by astronomers – after famous Hindu deities – were identified by combining data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia astrometry satellite with data from the massive Sloan Digital Sky Survey.

It is noted that the identification of stars that joined the Milky Way as part of another galaxy became possible relatively recently thanks to the array of information collected by Gaia. Several similar structures have already been discovered previously, in particular:

• Gaia Enceladus, also known as “Gaia the Weenie,” is the remnant of the last major merger that our galaxy experienced between 8 and 11 billion years ago;
• The Pontus stream, discovered in 2022, is a likely satellite galaxy that merged with the Milky Way perhaps 8-10 billion years ago;
• The “poor old heart” of the Milky Way, also identified in 2022, is a population of stars that formed during the initial mergers that created the proto-Galaxy and continue to reside in the central region of the Milky Way.

As for the newly discovered Shakti and Shiva, unlike the “poor old heart” that could also be seen in the corresponding images, these two groups of stars had relatively large angular momentum, consistent with groups of stars that were part of merging separate galaxies. with the Milky Way.

Their energy and angular momentum values, as well as their overall low metallicity, comparable to “poor old heart,” make Shakti and Shiva good candidates for being one of the oldest ancestors of our Milky Way, the paper notes. — Shakti and Shiva may be the first two additions to the “poor old heart” of our Milky Way, initiating its growth towards a larger galaxy.

Now scientists will conduct more detailed studies to test their guesses.

Source: Racurs

David

I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.