The Milky Way is trying to rip its neighbors apart.
have been orbiting our galactic home for billions of years, research suggests, during which the gravitational force of the much more massive Milky Way has been stripping gas from the two smaller galaxies, creating a trail in their wake. In theory, this gas loss should quench star birth, but the small satellite galaxies have still managed to maintain vigorous star formation.
Thus far, observational evidence of the Magellanic Corona has been elusive, but new research based on 30 years' worth of observations by theand the now retired Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer satellite may have changed that situation. This cosmic shield has been difficult to detect because despite stretching from the Magellanic system for 100,000, the Magellanic Corona is almost invisible. If it weren't it would cover a huge portion of the southern sky.
Searching through the Hubble/Fuse data, the astronomers were specifically looking for ultraviolet observations of quasars located billions of light-years behind the Magellanic Corona.powered by supermassive black holes feeding on gas. As they swallow this material the black holes emit so much energy that they shine brighter than all the stars in their respective galaxy combined.