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Dwarfs swallowed by the Milky Way

Nature (1999)Cite this article

Our Galaxy, the Milky Way, engulfed several other small star systems during the course of its history, according to evidence presented in Nature1.

The Milky Way is visible on a clear night as a band of silvery light across the sky: countless millions of stars, too distant to see individually with the naked eye. Although it looks as though we are outside this vast field of stars we are, in fact, situated on one spiral arm of the Galaxy close to its outer edge. The Milky Way is what we see looking back into the flat Galactic disk.

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References

  1. Helmi,A., White, S.D. M., De Zeeuw, P. T. & Zhao, H. Debris streams in the solar neighbourhood as relicts from the formation of the Milky Way Nature 402, 53 1999.

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  2. Lee,Y.-W., Joo, J.-M., Sohn, Y.-J., Rey, S.-C., Lee, H.-C. & Walker, A. R. Multiple stellar populations in the globular cluster Centauri as tracers of a merger event Nature 402, 55 1999.

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

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Authors
  1. Philip Ball
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Ball, P. Dwarfs swallowed by the Milky Way. Nature (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/news991104-10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/news991104-10

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