For years now, astronomers have been looking at the sky to try and find dark energy -- energy
that mathematically should exist, but that we're not sure how to detect, or where to
find.
To detect the undetectable, scientists build increasingly sensitive telescopes and point
them at the sky to do a survey.
And one of those had an unexpected side-effect...
The Milky Way has billions of stars, the Dark Energy Survey just uncovered a bunch of them
weren't born here.
Instead, they migrated to our shores and are now living their lives as productive members
of our galactic society!
We know this because in the hunt for dark energy, the Dark Energy Survey.
Very clever name, gang.
Good work.
imaged these…
See those dim paths?
Those are called 'stellar streams.'
They're the little paths migratory stars took when coming to our galaxy!
I KNOW!
We're looking at the galactic version of Ellis and Angel Islands!
Stellar Streams are formed when smaller dimmer galaxies wander too close to the Milky Way.
The collective gravity of the two galaxies cause little tendrils of stars on the outskirts
of the passing galaxy to stretch out…
Once the tendrils of the Milky Way and the passing galaxy meet, stars start to flow into
the Milky Way's gravitational field and form halos!
We've known about the stellar streams for a while, but to see them is pretty incredible.
Stars are commonly formed in regions dense of gas and dust.
When this cosmic detritus gets dense enough, its collective gravity collapses on itself
forming a baby star.
As we've covered on Seeker before, astronomers are just learning about the family tree of
stars, based on where they're from.
These stellar nurseries exist all over the Milky Way, and it's where most of our stars
(including the sun) were born.
But there are billions of other galaxies out there of all shapes and sizes.
With their own stellar nurseries…
These stellar streams may alter the border regions of the Milky Way, bringing stars with
different combinations of elements or other unknown benefits
The next Dark Energy Survey is slated to start in 2023, and will be even more sensitive,
looking even harder at our sky.
I wonder what they'll find.
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What do you guys think of dark energy? Is it worth finding and looking into?
Let us know in the comments, make sure you watch this video for more information about it,
And thanks so much for watching Seeker.
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