Mysterious planets have a 'mother' from another galaxy

Astronomers have long faced the puzzling phenomenon of the strange chaos and excess of the Milky Way - the galaxy containing the Earth.

Recently, a multinational science team used 10-year data from the Cosmic Spectrometer (COS) of the Hubble Space Telescope (NASA) and discovered the "ghosts" silently invading nature. ours.

Map of gas clouds entering and exiting the Milky Way - (photo: NASA / ESA / D. Player).

They found that the amount of gas entering our galaxy is much greater than the amount of gas released. That is, things that enter our galaxy in addition to the gas that has been ejected and turned back, are also present with extraterrestrials.

According to researcher Philipp Richter from Potsdam University (Germany), the co-author of the study, this imbalance may come from gas streams invading other worlds into the galaxy. These are the clouds of gas wandering in interstellar medium and other gas from the galaxy are "charmed" by the Milky Way .

Larger than most "neighbors" , the earth-containing galaxy used its gravity to sweep gas from nearby galaxies.

But this gravitational component is of great value to the Milky Way, as it has become one of the "mothers" of newly born stars and planets in our galaxy. The gas circulation has helped to adjust, balance, and partially shape the newborn objects coming from discrete material in the galaxy.

"Our detailed galaxy study provides the basis for understanding more galaxies in the universe, and helps us realize that our galaxy is more complex than imagined, " Richter commented.

The research will be detailed in the upcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal .