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In 2013, the European Space Agency launched the Gaia satellite with the ambitious goal of mapping all the stars of our galaxy. Recently, scientists used the data collected by Gaia to try to find stars in our galaxy that came out. Instead, they discovered more than a dozen stars that seem to come from galaxies other than ours.
Gaia is a unique satellite because it is designed not only to look at other stars, but also to measure their distance, to determine the direction and speed at which they move. The goal of Gaia is to create a 3D map of our galaxy that can tell us where these stars are now and at any time in the past or the future.
A group of researchers from the Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands decided to use this information to find stars that were definitely retiring from our galaxy. Sometimes, when the stars come too close to the center of the galaxy, they can get caught in the gravitational fields and be ejected with such force that they eventually leave the galaxy completely. Leiden researchers looked at Gaia's data for high-speed stars to identify this type of star.
However, when they looked at the data, they realized that most of the high-speed stars they had found were heading toward the center of the galaxy, rather than moving away from it. Researchers think it's because these stars are the ones that have been ejected from other galaxies and have managed to make their way to ours.
The researchers found that out of 20 high-speed stars, 13 came from other galaxies. In particular, most of these stars seem to come from the Great Cloud of Magellan, a small neighboring galaxy that revolves around our own Milky Way. And even if they are finally destined to leave, we should be able to enjoy their company for a very long time.
Source: Royal Astronomical Society
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