article_snippet: Astronomers have discovered that a strange ring of distant stars may actually be part of our galaxy, making it 50 per cent bigger at 150,000 light-years wide.
article_snippet: This is based on re-analysis of a distant ring that surrounds our galaxy, which the astronomers think is now actually part of it, and could have been disturbed by other dwarf galaxies.
article_snippet: The team of scientists from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York studied the Monoceros Ring, which is a long ring-like filament of stars that ‘wraps’ around our galaxy three times.
article_snippet: When physicists study the dynamics of galaxies and the movement of stars, physicists are confronted with a mystery.
article_snippet: Another implication of the discovery is that two star-forming clusters found below the Milky Way, announced last month, may actually have an extragalactic origin.
article_snippet: Known as Camargo 438 and 439, the two clusters were found 16,000 light-years below the flattened disk of the Milky Way.
article_snippet: Previously, it was only thought possible for stars to form inside giant molecular clouds (GMC) located in the inner part of the galactic disc.
article_snippet: the two clusters were thought to have been pushed out of the galactic disk by a ‘superwind’ caused by supernovae.
article_snippet: But Dr Denilso Camargo of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Porte Alegre, Brazil - who led the study - told MailOnline that the discovery by the Cambridge scientists now suggests the Cambridge scientists might have come from beyond our own galaxy before being captured.
article_snippet: This work supports the idea that Camargo 438 and Camargo 439 have an extragalactic origin,’ he said.