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Gaia Enceladus and Gaia Sausage are names that have been used for a dwarf galaxy that merged with the Milky Way gigayears ago. Its past existence was deduced from Gaia data showing Milky-Way stars with particular orbit characteristics. The merger occurred 8 to 11 billion years ago, substantially larger than any subsequent merger. Billions of stars as well as several globular cluster were added.
The word sausage was inspired by a plot of the velocities of the stars, in which the stars occupied a distinct large oval sausage-shaped region of the plot.