Scientists of the University of Birmingham managed to reveal the secret of the origin of the Milky Way. It turned out that our galaxy was already almost completely formed at the time of a collision with another Galaxy billions years ago, although it was previously believed that the processes of star formation in the Milky Putin that moment was just started. This is reported in the article published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
Experts examined hundreds of red giant stars, some of which belonged to the dwarf Galaxy Gaia Enceladus, in antiquity, collided with the Milky. The age of the stars was determined when analyzing the data obtained by Kepler, Gaia telescopes and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey project tools. At the same time, experts used the methods of astrosheysology, when the frequencies and amplitudes of their own oscillations are measured, which makes it possible to learn about its structure and life.
According to the conclusions of scientists, almost all stars of the studied group have the same age or a little younger than the stars originally arising in the Milky Way. This indicates that by the time of the collision, which occurred 8-11 billion years ago, in the Milky Way, the processes of star formation were already actively processed, and most of the stars arising then are now inside a thick disk – the element of the galaxy structure that differs from a thin disk smaller brightness and density.