The Gaia telescope is sketching the process of our galactic Creation. This blog has discussed our galaxy's consumption of clusters like Omega Centauri, and the mergers which made our core. Now from Rensselaer Poly: the Virgo Radial Merger, in the inner halo.
Here are a set of stars we know aren't native to this place. These were earlier thought to belong to the much-earlier Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus merger. The VR merger was 3-1 Gya, although the presser and the study prefer 2-1 for most the magic. I take it that both mergers were already defined, but that the VR was more-questionable. The VR must have been mooted recently since I'd thought the Sagittarius was the latest. Now the VR is solidly defined.
The VR should have sparked some star-formation, lighting up some nice supernovae over our Boring Billion skies. I don't think anything with a brain was yet swimming in our scummy ponds and shoals.
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