Milky Way's ancient meal: Scientists discover remnants of devoured dwarf galaxy

Ten billion years ago, the Milky Way consumed a smaller galaxy — and now, hidden among the crowded stars of its own disk, astronomers have found the traces it left behind. A cluster of unusually ancient, metal-poor stars near the galactic plane appears to be the scattered remnant of this long-vanished world, which researchers have named Loki. The discovery invites us to reconsider our galaxy not as a fixed and eternal home, but as a living archive of cosmic violence and absorption — still carrying within it the chemical memory of worlds it once swallowed.