Scientists say that the rippling of our solar system is like a pond that has been disrupted by a stone. Live Science says that the pond is our home galaxy and the rock is the size of 400 million Suns.
I'm sorry! It's fascinating if it doesn't cause a crisis.
There's a lot that this ancient wobbling can teach us about our galaxy's oft-chaotic history.
It happened a long time ago. Astronomers see anything that is the result of old Cosmic impacts. How do we know the residual rippling is there if we can't see it?
The international team of researchers used data from the European Space Agency's Gaia space observatory to study the movement of over 20 million stars. They modeled the ripples as well as the likely time of the Sagittarius collision, which they believe happened hundreds of millions of years ago.
Paul McMillan, an astronomer at Sweden's Lund University, explained in a translated statement that the stars are moving at different speeds.
While previous studies have concluded that our galaxy is rippling, this one is the first to show that the ripples move all the way through its farthest reaches, a sign that at the time, our comparatively small neighbor was much bigger than it is today.
The hypothesis that the Sagittarius and the Milky Way have crashed into each other multiple times in the history of our universe is supported by this research. It offers a new glimpse into the beginnings of our home galaxy and its neighbors, as well as a chance to understand the ones likely to happen in the future.
Scientists may finally know why the stars are pointing in a different direction.
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