INBOX ASTRONOMY
Hubble Solves Merger Mystery From Milky Way’s Early Years
Release date: Monday, August 17, 2026 11:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time
Astronomers find strong evidence for a massive merger 1.8 billion years earlier than the oldest previously known significant merger.
The early universe was a chaotic place, crowded with young galaxies that smashed together and agglomerated into larger and larger galaxies over billions of years. Our own Milky Way experienced such collisions, but the details are difficult to tease out since they occurred so long ago. Researchers using the Hubble Space Telescope have now extended our knowledge of the Milky Way’s history 1.8 billion years farther back in time than ever before, finding strong evidence that it merged with another galaxy in the earliest phases of its evolution.
Find additional resources at
www.stsci.edu
Please do not reply to this message.
You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to the Inbox Astronomy mailing list.
Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute's
Office of Public Outreach