Visuals

An N-body simulation of a satellite galaxy disrupting in a time-evolving Milky Way-mass potential. The background colormap shows the dark matter distribution, the contour traces the bound stellar core, and the points are tidally stripped stars forming a stellar stream.

Videep Reddy & Arpit Arora

The Field of Streams — a panoramic view of stellar streams and substructure in the Milky Way's halo, mapped with the Dark Energy Camera (DECam). Each streak and overdensity traces the tidal debris of a disrupted satellite galaxy or globular cluster, providing a fossil record of the Milky Way's accretion history.

Ferguson & Shipp 2025  ·  arXiv:2506.05469

Populations of disrupting satellites — intact, streams, and phase-mixed — around a Milky Way-mass galaxy in the Auriga simulations. Each dot is a star particle, colored by the satellite it belongs to. As satellites orbit, tidal forces strip stars into long streams that wrap around the galaxy, eventually phase-mixing into a diffuse stellar halo.

Shipp et al. 2025  ·  arXiv:2410.09143