By Ron Cowen
Thirteen billion years after its birth, the Milky Way is still packing on the stars. Astronomers have discovered two dwarf galaxies that are being devoured by the Milky Way. They’ve also found two vast, streams of stars that were most likely torn from star clusters or small galaxies that long ago came too close to our much bigger galaxy.
The studies are giving researchers a new tool for mapping our galaxy’s dark matter, the vast, invisible halo of material that astronomers say provides the Milky Way’s gravitational glue.