Small neighboring galaxies not related to the Milky Way
A survey of stars carried out at the European Southern Observatory casts doubt on the most common theory of the formation of larger galaxies. This theory had predicted that our Milky Way was formed by the merger of smaller, older minigalaxies. However, the latter should contain particularly typical metal-poor stars from the early days of the universe - i.e. those with very small amounts of elements that are heavier than hydrogen and helium. However, this was not confirmed when the researchers examined 2000 stars in four neighboring dwarf galaxies with the Very Large Telescope.
On the contrary, the stars there often contained larger amounts of iron than predicted. The distribution of elements in the dwarf galaxies roughly corresponds to that in the so-called halo of the Milky Way, which surrounds our galaxy and contains globular star clusters and old stars in particular. However, the very metal-poor stars of the Milky Way were missing from the dwarf galaxies, according to the scientists after their evaluation.
This means that "the chemistry of the dwarf galaxy stars cannot be reconciled with current cosmological models," says author Amina Helmi from the University of Groningen. So the Milky Way probably did not form from merged dwarf galaxies either. (yo)
