{"id":195592,"date":"2026-07-22T11:28:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T16:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/?p=195592"},"modified":"2026-07-22T11:28:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T16:58:09","slug":"our-milky-way-galaxy-likely-underwent-disk-flip-after-ancient-galactic-collision-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/?p=195592","title":{"rendered":"Our Milky Way Galaxy Likely Underwent Disk Flip after Ancient Galactic Collision: Study"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n A head-on collision with another galaxy billions of years ago may have dramatically reoriented the Milky Way\u2019s disk, according to new supercomputer simulations that reveal how violent mergers can leave spiral galaxies looking surprisingly normal today.<\/strong><\/p>\n
\"Using<\/a><\/p>\n

Using supercomputer simulations of galaxies like the Milky Way, Batrakov et al<\/em>. found that galaxies with slowly rotating stellar haloes are more likely to have experienced a major \u2018disk flip,\u2019 where our Galaxy\u2019s disk changed its orientation by more than 90 degrees. Image credit: Batrakov et al<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Most of the Milky Way\u2019s stars are found in its flat spiral disk.<\/p>\n

Surrounding this is a much larger but much sparser stellar halo, made up mostly of stars that originally formed in smaller galaxies before being pulled into the Milky Way through galaxy mergers.<\/p>\n

Observations from ESA\u2019s Gaia mission have shown that the Milky Way\u2019s stellar halo rotates very slowly, but astronomers have not understood why.<\/p>\n

To investigate, Dr. Kirill Batrakov and his colleagues from Durham University analyzed the evolution of 25 Milky Way-like galaxies in the Auriga suite of cosmological simulations, following their development over billions of years.<\/p>\n

They found that galaxies with the slowest rotating stellar haloes shared two important features.<\/p>\n

They had experienced a major head-on merger with another galaxy, and they had also undergone a disk flip during their evolution.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe already know that the Milky Way had a massive head-on collision in the past with a galaxy known as Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus<\/a>, often simply called the Gaia Sausage,\u201d Dr. Batrakov said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, we think that the Milky Way disk likely flipped in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus was a massive dwarf galaxy that collided with and was absorbed by the early Milky Way about 10 to 11 billion years ago.<\/p>\n

This defining galactic merger was the largest event in the early history of the Milky Way and reshaped our Galaxy, leaving billions of stars orbiting in highly elongated, sausage-shaped paths.<\/p>\n

Identifying a past disk flip gives astronomers a new way to understand how the Milky Way assembled and may also provide indirect clues about the motion of its invisible dark matter halo.<\/p>\n

\u201cA disk flip also means most of the Milky Way\u2019s stars once moved on very different trajectories than they do today \u2014 possibly even our own Sun, meaning our \u2018stable\u2019 spot in the Galaxy might not have been so stable for the Solar System\u2019s whole lifetime,\u201d Dr. Batrakov said.<\/p>\n

A disk flip does not happen in every galaxy, so if its history included a major flip that has not been linked to observable features of our Galaxy, then it offers astronomers clues about how similar galaxies formed.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause we live inside the Milky Way, we can study it in more detail than any other galaxy, which makes it a key testbed for understanding galaxies more broadly,\u201d Dr. Batrakov said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFinding that its disk flipped adds a new chapter to that story, one we must account for when placing the Milky Way in a broader context of other galaxies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat excites me the most is that this complex history can be reconstructed just from present-day observations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The astronomers also found that the rotation of the Milky Way\u2019s stellar halo is closely linked to the rotation of its dark matter halo, suggesting the two possibly evolved together as the Galaxy grew by accreting smaller satellite galaxies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe findings provide a possible explanation for one of the Milky Way\u2019s unusual features and offer new clues about how our Galaxy formed and evolved over billions of years,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

The researchers presented their results<\/a> this week at the 2026 National Astronomy Meeting (NAM2026)<\/em><\/a> in Birmingham, the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n

_____<\/span><\/p>\n

Kirill Batrakov et al<\/em>. Why is the Milky Way stellar halo slowly rotating? NAM2026<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n


\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A head-on collision with another galaxy billions of years ago may have dramatically reoriented the Milky Way\u2019s disk, according to new supercomputer simulations that reveal how violent mergers can leave spiral galaxies looking surprisingly normal today. Using supercomputer simulations of galaxies like the Milky Way, Batrakov et al. found that galaxies with slowly rotating stellar…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":195593,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-195592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image_14935-Milky-Way-Disk-Flip.jpg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":195694,"url":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/?p=195694","url_meta":{"origin":195592,"position":0},"title":"Ancient collision with the Gaia Sausage dwarf galaxy 10 billion years ago may have flipped the Milky Way by more than 90 degrees, astronomers say","author":"Ajay Kumar Verma","date":"July 22, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Ancient collision with the Gaia Sausage dwarf galaxy 10 billion years ago may have flipped the Milky Way by more than 90 degrees, astronomers say A dramatic collision between the Milky Way and a dwarf galaxy around 10 billion years ago may have completely changed the orientation of our galaxy,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "National News"","block_context":{"text":"National News","link":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newslink360.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784757898_photo.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newslink360.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784757898_photo.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newslink360.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784757898_photo.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newslink360.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784757898_photo.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newslink360.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784757898_photo.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":195480,"url":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/?p=195480","url_meta":{"origin":195592,"position":1},"title":"The Milky Way May Have Flipped More Than 90 Degrees During Its Violent Youth","author":"Ajay Kumar Verma","date":"July 22, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Artistic illustration of how the Milky Way\u2019s disc may have shifted by more than 90 degrees. 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