Abstract: With its most recent data releases, European Space Agency’s Gaia mission revealed the fossilised record of a dramatic – and long suspected – accretion event in the distant past of our Galaxy. This head-on collision with a massive dwarf galaxy was a turning point in the evolution of the Milky Way and unleashed a series of transformations that forever changed the Galaxy. This unprecedented metamorphosis is the focus of this talk. I will discuss the time, the geometry and the kinematics of the interaction, and elucidate the response of the Milky Way to the massive intruder.
The transformation of the Milky Way
Vasily Belokurov (IOA, Cambridge) // October 28, 2021
Abstract: With its most recent data releases, European Space Agency’s Gaia mission revealed the fossilised record of a dramatic – and long suspected – accretion event in the distant past of our Galaxy. This head-on collision with a massive dwarf galaxy was a turning point in the evolution of the Milky Way and unleashed a series of transformations that forever changed the Galaxy. This unprecedented metamorphosis is the focus of this talk. I will discuss the time, the geometry and the kinematics of the interaction, and elucidate the response of the Milky Way to the massive intruder.