Gaia Sees Effects of Milky Way’s Close Encounter with Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy0
- From Around the Web, Space
- September 21, 2018
Astronomers analyzing data from the second release of ESA’s star mapping mission Gaia have shown that our Milky Way Galaxy is still enduring the effects of a near collision that set millions of its stars moving like ripples on a pond. The close encounter likely took place sometime in the past 300-900 million years, and the culprit could be the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy, an elliptical loop-shaped galaxy located 78,300 light-years away. It was discovered because of the pattern of movement it has given to stars in the Milky Way disk.
