Galactic collisions produced a sausage V. Belokurov (Cambridge, UK); Based on image by ESO/Juan Carlos Muñoz
A collision 8 to 10 billion years ago between our own Milky Way and a smaller galaxy dubbed “the sausage” helped grow stars in the centre of the Milky Way, including our own sun. The smaller galaxy was torn apart in the collision, providing extra gases to fuel star formation.
The crash would have lasted many hundreds of millions of years. Stars from the smaller galaxy have ended up with strange, sausage-shaped orbits around the centre of the Milky Way – hence the name.…
