‘Great Wave’ ripples through Milky Way, shifting thousands of stars

Scientists have detected a “Great Wave” which is traveling across the Milky Way galaxy’s centre and responsible for pushing thousands of stars out of place.

The Milky Way’s galactic wave was detected by the European Space Agency (ESA) during the mission through Gaia telescope which is used for charting the positions and movement patterns of millions of stars with ultimate precision before running out of fuel this March.

As per ESA’s official statement, the massive wave is casting a huge impact on other cosmic entities. It affects stars between 30,000 and 65,000 light-years away from the galaxy center.

Astronomers are still clueless about the reason behind the wave phenomenon. According to ESA officials, the collision with the dwarf galaxy could be responsible for this phenomenon.

Gaia’s data also help astronomers to calculate top-down and edge-on maps, demonstrating stars above and below the Milky Way’s disc. It also maps the motion of those stars revealing wave-like dynamics.

Dr. Eloisa Poggio, astronomer at the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) in Italy and lead author of the study said, “This observed behaviour is consistent with what we would expect from a wave. The intriguing part is not only the visual appearance of the wave structure in 3D space, but also its wave-like behaviour when we analyse the motions of the stars within it.”

The unprecedented feature that is published in Astronomy and Astrophysics, adds another layer to scientists’ evolving understanding of the Milky Way’s complex dynamics.