Cosmic event 11.8 billion years ago altered the Milky Way
It has been discovered that the Milky Way galaxy experienced its first merger approximately 11.8 billion years ago, when it absorbed a dwarf galaxy called "Low-Energy-Kraken-Heracles" (LKH). At that time, LKH had a mass equivalent to a quarter of the Milky Way's size, with a stellar mass estimated at around 500 million times that of the Sun. Analyses of star clusters near the galaxy's center revealed that some stars did not form within the Milky Way itself but arrived after the merger. It is also possible that the gas resulting from this event boosted star formation and contributed to the creation of dark matter. Researchers explained that this merger was relatively gentle in terms of stellar collisions but triggered a powerful wave of star formation. Some of the new stars from this event still exist today. This event is considered the first direct evidence of an early merger process that played a role in shaping and transforming the Milky Way into its current spiral galaxy form.
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