Astronomers have identified two ancient streams of stars - named after the Hindu deities Shakti and Shiva - that appear to be among the Milky Way's earliest building blocks, offering new insight into how our galaxy came together long ago.
An illustration shows a view of the Milky Way band across the sky, with yellow dots showing the location of the stars from the Shakti ancient stream of stars and blue dots showing the location of the stars from the Shiva ancient stellar stream. ESA/Gaia/DPAC/K. Malhan/Handout via REUTERS THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD...
In Hinduism, the union between Shiva and Shakti gave rise to the cosmos. Identifying the Shakti and Shiva structures has helped to bring the Milky Way's turbulent earliest stages into focus. "Specifically, our study potentially provides an understanding of the Milky Way's very initial stages of formation by identifying two star structures that coalesced very early on, perhaps the last event from the proto-Milky Way before disk formation commenced," Malhan said.
The Big Bang event that initiated the galaxy occurred about 13.8 billion years ago. The infant Milky Way is believed to have possessed an irregular form, with long filaments of gas, dust and stars coalescing and weaving together.
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