The Evidence That the Milky Way Devoured Galaxies | Sleepless Knowledge

Описание: Hidden far beyond the bright disk of the Milky Way, faint stellar streams stretch across the galaxy like silent records of past collisions. These delicate structures are formed when globular clusters and dwarf galaxies are torn apart by gravity, leaving long trails of stars that orbit for billions of years.

In this documentary-style episode, we explore how stellar streams reveal the Milky Way’s violent history of mergers, how missions like gaia transformed our view of the galactic halo, and how these streams trace the invisible structure of dark matter. From the dramatic destruction of the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy to the ancient Gaia–Enceladus merger, we follow the evidence written into stellar motions and chemical fingerprints.

Stellar streams act as natural detectors, mapping the galaxy’s gravitational potential and exposing dark matter substructure that cannot be seen directly. By studying their shapes, gaps, and motions, astronomers are reconstructing the Milky Way’s growth over cosmic time — and predicting what lies ahead.

This episode takes a deep, scientific look at how galaxies evolve, how gravity reshapes entire star systems, and why the Milky Way is surrounded by the remnants of devoured galaxies, still drifting quietly through the halo.