Don’t worry, it’s not a literal galaxy made up of fossils. Researchers from Liverpool John Moores University have discovered a fossil galaxy within the Milky Way. The galaxy, called Heracles, collided and merged with the Milky Way 10 billion years ago. If you’re not familiar with fossil galaxies, they are the remnants of a galaxy merging with another. New Atlas has the details:
Heracles was discovered using near-infrared data gathered by APOGEE, which has recorded readings from over 500,000 stars in our galaxy. According to the LJMU team, the infrared band of the spectrum was necessary because the center of the Milky Way is loaded with dust, which obscures visible light. By looking at the chemical composition and velocities of the stars, the scientists were able to separate the native stars from the ones that made up Heracles when the two galaxies collided.
"To find a fossil galaxy like this one, we had to look at the detailed chemical makeup and motions of tens of thousands of stars," says Ricardo Schiavon. "That is especially hard to do for stars in the center of the Milky Way, because they are hidden from view by clouds of interstellar dust. APOGEE lets us pierce through that dust and see deeper into the heart of the Milky Way than ever before."
Image via New Atlas
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