Astrophysics (Index)About

Gaia Enceladus

(Gaia Sausage)
(galaxy that merged with the Milky Way)

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 (circular motion versus radial motion), in which the stars attributed to Gaia Enceladus occupy a distinct large oval (sausage-shaped) region of the plot.


(galaxy,past,Milky Way)
Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_Sausage
https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2018/july/gaia-sausage.html
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018ApJ...863L..28M/abstract
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018ApJ...862L...1D/abstract
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018Natur.563...85H/abstract
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2024MNRAS.531.1520M/abstract

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