Star-Crossed: Milky Way's Spiral Shape May Result from a Smaller Galaxy's Impact

The lovely, familiar swirl of the Milky Way, with its symmetric spiral arms winding outward from a central bulge, may be scars from a smaller galaxy punching above its weight. A new computer re-enactment of billions of years of galactic evolution suggests that the Milky Way owes much of its current shape to interactions with a nearby dwarf galaxy. [More]

Read the whole article on Scientific American

More from Scientific American