Previously, scientists believed that the Milky Way did not experience bursts of star formation, but recently it was proven
The disk of our galaxy consists of two parts:thin and thick disk. The second arose approximately 8.6 billion years ago as a result of the Milky Way colliding or merging with another fairly large galaxy.
This event led to the fact that a significant portion of the ancient stars were ejected from the disk of the galaxy, forming a rarefied layer about a thousand light-years thick surrounding the thin disk.
Traditionally it is believed that thick and thin discsThe Milky Way arose in the distant past as a result of a particularly violent collision between our galaxy and one of its neighbors. For this reason, astronomers believed that something similar should not be found among other spiral galaxies. Our observations indicate that these theories are most likely wrong.
Nicholas Scott, ASTRO Research Fellow
After that, the authors of the work studied the UGC galaxy10738, which is located in the constellation Ophiuchus at a distance of 320 million light years from the Milky Way. Taking pictures of it using the VLT telescope installed at the Chilean Paranal Observatory, scientists found that its disk also consists of two separate parts.
However, scientists have not found anyevidence that this galaxy collided with other objects in the past. This, they believe, means that this kind of structure can appear on its own.
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