BBC Focus Magazine

[Shadowwolf]

The Milky Way galaxy continues to devour its small neighbouring dwarf galaxies and the evidence is spread out across the sky.

A team of astronomers led by Sergey Koposov and Vasily Belokurov of Cambridge University recently discovered two streams of stars in the Southern Galactic hemisphere that were torn off the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy. This discovery came from analysing data from the latest Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III) and was announced in a recent paper that connects these new streams with two previously known streams in the Northern Galactic hemisphere.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111129193115.htm

[M Paul Lloyd]

Interesting stuff, I seem to recall reading an article in Scientific American (about forty odd years ago mind) about a theory that our galaxy was colliding into another galaxy, although back then it was thought to be about the same size as ours.
Strange to see how things appear to be turning out.

[ChrisH]

I thought our galaxy was on a collision course with the Andromeda galaxy and due to merge in about 3 billion years. Or is this just a theory?

[M Paul Lloyd]

I believe that is the case Chris but 3 billion years is a ways off yet.