New stars running from the death of their own galaxies means our Milky Way might survive

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New stars running from the death of their own galaxies means our Milky Way might survive

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  • New intergalactic stars have been spotted along the outer edges of the Milky Way, which are normally home to old and ageing stars.
  • This cluster of stars is flying away from the impending collision of its home dwarf galaxies — the Magellanic Clouds.
  • The river of gas extending from the collision site could mean the Milky Way might survive in the future.
The very outskirts of the Milky Way are home to some of the oldest stars in the galaxy. However, flocks of new-born stars are flying into this celestial retirement community.

These stars are migrant refugees fleeing from their own dwarf galaxies — known as Magellanic Clouds — that are on a collision course of their own. And, the gas fleeting from that collision course is twice as close to the Milky Way than originally estimated.

New stars running from the death of their own galaxies means our Milky Way might survive
A newfound cluster of young stars (blue star) sits on the periphery of the Milky Way. These stars probably formed from material originating from neighbouring dwarf galaxies called the Magellanic Clouds. D. Nidever/NASA/Simons Foundation

The discovery was shared during the American Astronomical Society (AAS) conference on Tuesday by Andrian Price-Whelan, a research fellow at the Flatiron Institute's Center for Computational Astrophysics.

"It's really, really far away," Price-Whelan says. "It's further than any known young stars in the Milky Way, which are typically in the disk. So right away, I was like, ‘Holy smokes, what is this?'" he said.

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The impending collision could mean our survival

Around 117 million years old, which is relatively young for a star, this cluster is located next to a river of gas dubbed the Magellanic Stream. The gas doesn't contain a lot of metal, unlike other gases that are found along the outer edges of the Milky Way.

"This is a puny cluster of stars — less than a few thousand in total — but it has big implications beyond its local area of the Milky Way," Prince-Whelan explained.

New stars running from the death of their own galaxies means our Milky Way might survive
Astronomers have spotted a group of young stars (blue) on the outskirts of the Milky Way. The scientists propose that these stars formed from material from two dwarf galaxies known as the Magellanic Clouds.A. Price-Whelan/Simons Foundation

In fact, the Milky Way's very survival could be depending on it.

The galaxy is currently consuming more gas than it's able to generate, slowing eating away at its life. But the resulting gas from the collision has the potential to replenish the Milk Way's reservoirs.

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The collision could happen sooner than predicted

"If the Magellanic Stream is closer, especially the leading arm closest to our galaxy, then it's likely to be incorporated into the Milky Way sooner than the current model predicts," forecasted David Nidever, an astrophysicist who led an analysis of the metal content in 27 of the brightest stars in the cluster.

The study published in Astrophysical Journal estimates that the new stars are around 90,000 lightyears away from the Milky Way. While that's a considerable distance, it's roughly half of what was previously predicted.

Beacons of hope

These newborn stars were formed as gas escaped from the impending collision of the two dwarf galaxies. The drag force of other gases within the Milky Way condensed the foreign material as it passed through. The Milky Way's gravitational tug condensed the gas further making it dense enough to trigger star formation.

Over time, they were able to escape the gas around them and zoom ahead to join the Milky Way.

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See also:
Supermassive black hole bigger than 7 billion Suns is spinning so fast that it's close to breaking the laws of physics

NASA's planet-hunter uncovers its first world with two stars 1,300 light-years away

A star that's slowly been getting brighter over the past decades will explode in 2083

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