Jump to contentSwipe for next articleIndependent Bulletin homepageDownload our appAllNewsSportCultureLifestyleAndrew GriffinTuesday 18 August 2026 11:32 BSTHow NASA predicted the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy would collideAstrophysicists led by Davide Massari at Italy's National Institute for Astrophysics have discovered that the Milky Waydevoured a dwarf galaxy named Low-energy-Kraken-Heracles roughly 11.8 billion years ago in its earliest known merger.Using data from the Hubble and Gaia space telescopes, researchers examined stellar clusters within the galaxy's innermost 20,000 light-years to evaluate their age, trajectory and chemical signatures.At the time of the collision, the absorbed dwarf galaxy was roughly a quarter of the Milky Way's size and possessed a combined stellar mass 500 million times that of the Sun.While direct star crashes were rare, the collision between gas clouds was explosive, fuelling widespread star formation and infusing the early galaxy with stars, interstellar gas and dark matter.This primordial event represents the earliest of three known major galactic mergers in the history of the Milky Way, paving the way for the eventual formation of Earth and our solar system.In fullNew research reveals mystery of how the Milky Way devoured a smaller galaxyMore bulletinsThank you for registeringPlease refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in