This illustration shows the disk of our Milky Way galaxy, surrounded by a faint halo of old stars. Hubble Space Telescope measurements of 13 halo stars' motion indicate the possible presence of a shell in the halo, which may have formed from the accretion of a dwarf galaxy.
The Milky Way's far outer reaches may harbor a shell of stars left over
from a long-ago act of galactic cannibalism, a new study suggests.
The finding supports the idea that our Milky Way has continued to grow
over the eons by gobbling up smaller satellite galaxies, researchers
said. And the results may help astronomers better understand how mass is
distributed throughout the galaxy, which could shed light on the
mysterious dark matter that's thought to make up more than 80 percent of all matter in the universe.
For the rest of the story: http://www.livescience.com/27490-milky-way-galaxy-cannibalism-hubble.html
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