Hubble solves merger mystery from Milky Way's early years

AIMode News Desk · curated summary

August 17, 20261 min readScience

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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.

Key takeaways

01Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, grew to its current size in part by consuming smaller galaxies.
02Now, 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.
03This finding extends our knowledge of our galaxy's history 1.8 billion years farther back in time than before.

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