Scientists from one of the world's leading astronomical institutes, based in Germany Max Planck Institute For astronomy, they identified two of the oldest building blocks of the Milky Way and named them “Shakti” and “Shiva”.
“These appear to be the remains of two galaxies that merged between 12 and 13 billion years ago with an early version of the Milky Way, contributing to the initial growth of our parent galaxy. The new discovery is the astronomical equivalent of archaeologists identifying traces of an initial settlement that grew into a large city today.” The study, whose results were published in the Astrophysical Journal, said: “It required merging data for nearly 6 million stars.”
It was Khyati Malhan and Hans-Walter Rex of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy who succeeded in identifying the first two building blocks that can still be identified today as “protogalactic fragments that merged with an early version of our Milky Way Galaxy at the beginning of the era of galaxy formation in the universe.” The components were identified by combining data from the European Space Agency's Gaia astrometry satellite with data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.
Scholar Malhan named these two temples Shakti and Shiva, the latter being one of the major deities in Hinduism and the former a feminine cosmic force often depicted as Shiva's consort. “We observed that for a certain group of metal-poor stars, the stars were crowded around two specific combinations of energy and angular momentum. Shakti and Shiva may be the first additions to the 'poor old heart' of our Milky Way Galaxy, beginning its growth toward the Milky Way,” Malhan said in a press release. “Big.” Rex provided detailed information about the chemical composition of stars.
Their energy and angular momentum values, as well as their generally low metallicity on par with that of the “poor old core”, make Shakti and Shiva good candidates to be early ancestors of the Milky Way.
“These appear to be the remains of two galaxies that merged between 12 and 13 billion years ago with an early version of the Milky Way, contributing to the initial growth of our parent galaxy. The new discovery is the astronomical equivalent of archaeologists identifying traces of an initial settlement that grew into a large city today.” The study, whose results were published in the Astrophysical Journal, said: “It required merging data for nearly 6 million stars.”
It was Khyati Malhan and Hans-Walter Rex of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy who succeeded in identifying the first two building blocks that can still be identified today as “protogalactic fragments that merged with an early version of our Milky Way Galaxy at the beginning of the era of galaxy formation in the universe.” The components were identified by combining data from the European Space Agency's Gaia astrometry satellite with data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.
Scholar Malhan named these two temples Shakti and Shiva, the latter being one of the major deities in Hinduism and the former a feminine cosmic force often depicted as Shiva's consort. “We observed that for a certain group of metal-poor stars, the stars were crowded around two specific combinations of energy and angular momentum. Shakti and Shiva may be the first additions to the 'poor old heart' of our Milky Way Galaxy, beginning its growth toward the Milky Way,” Malhan said in a press release. “Big.” Rex provided detailed information about the chemical composition of stars.
Their energy and angular momentum values, as well as their generally low metallicity on par with that of the “poor old core”, make Shakti and Shiva good candidates to be early ancestors of the Milky Way.
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