Milky Way’s parent stars were finally discovered after 13 billion years by Gaia spacecraft

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Using ESA’s Gaia spacecraft, astronomers have tracked down two streams of stars that likely formed the foundation of the Milky Way.
According to Universe Today, the two streams named “Shakti and Shiva” contain about 10 million stars, all 12 to 13 billion years old.
These stars likely came together before the spiral arms and disk were formed. They are moving in roughly similar orbits and have identical compositions. Moreover, they can probably be separate galaxies that merged into the Milky Way shortly after the Big Bang.,
“What’s truly amazing is that we can detect these ancient structures at all,” said lead author Khyati Malhan of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) in Heidelberg, Germany, in an ESA press release.
“The Milky Way has changed so significantly since these stars were born that we wouldn’t expect to recognise them so clearly as a group – but the unprecedented data we’re getting from Gaia made it possible.”
Gaia uses Astrometry, the precise measurements of the positions and movements of stars and other celestial bodies, is used by Gaia. It is building our Galaxy’s most enormous, precise three-dimensional map by surveying nearly two billion objects.
The researchers wrote in their paper, published in the Astrophysical Journal, that “Shakti and Shiva populations possess an unconventional combination of orbital and abundance properties that have not been observed previously.”