Simulations reveal that up to half the material in our galaxy arrived from smaller galactic neighbours, as a result of powerful supernova explosionsNearly half of the atoms that make up our bodies may have formed beyond the Milky Way and travelled to the solar system on intergalactic winds driven by giant exploding stars, astronomers claim. They noticed that as stars exploded in smaller galaxies, the blasts ejected clouds of elements that fell into neighbouring, larger galaxies. The Milky Way absorbs about one sun’s-worth of extragalactic material every year. “What we did not anticipate, and what’s the big surprise, is that about half of the atoms that end up in Milky Way-like galaxies come from other galaxies,” he said. The animations can show whether stars in a galaxy formed from material already in the galaxy, or from huge clouds of gas that fell in from neighbouring galaxies.

Source: The Guardian July 27, 2017 00:56 UTC