How our Milky Way once underwent a dramatic flip

The Milky Way may have undergone some cosmic gymnastics during its history with a dramatic disc flip, according to new research from Durham University astronomers.

The research offers new clues about how our galaxy formed and evolved over billions of years.

Using supercomputer simulations of galaxies like the Milky Way, a team of astronomers from Durham University's Department of Physics found that galaxies with slowly rotating stellar haloes are more likely to have experienced a major ‘disc flip’, where the galaxy’s disc changed its orientation by more than 90 degrees.

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