In a study published in the journal Nature Astronomy, scientists from the universities of Durham and Helsinki showed that
The satellite galaxies of the Milky Way have an unusualalignment: They are on a huge thin rotating plane known as the satellite plane. For more than 50 years, astronomers were puzzled by this seemingly incredible arrangement, which seemed to contradict the generally accepted cosmological model.
Scientists used new data from spacethe GAIA observatory, which monitors the billions of objects in the Milky Way and nearby space to determine the exact location of the objects and build a map of the Galaxy. Based on observational data, astrophysicists have restored the historical trajectories of satellite galaxies and their future directions.
Positions and orbits of 11 satellite galaxiesof the Milky Way, projected in the disk plane (top) and sideways (bottom) and extended billions of years into the past and future. Although they currently line up in a plane (indicated by a gray horizontal line), this plane quickly dissolves as the satellites move through their orbits. Image: Till Sawala et al., Nature Astronomy
The study showed that the current flat structure is just a temporal anomaly both in the past and in the future, it is disintegrating, and satellite galaxies surround the Milky Way in three-dimensional space.
This discovery resolves a key contradictionbetween observations of the Milky Way and standard cosmological theory. Recall that it suggests that the galaxies that we see now gradually formed inside clumps of cold dark matter. This means that the satellites should surround the dark matter clot in a circle, and not in a plane.
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Cover image: Till Sawala, Sibelius collaboration