The Sun’s long-lost siblings

Our Sun is a cosmic traveller, and new research has found that it may have participated in a mass migration with its long-lost stellar siblings. A team of researchers from Japan has created a catalogue of stars with characteristics and behaviours, such as temperature, chemical composition, and age, that are nearly identical to that of the Sun, making them solar 'twins'.

Led by Daisuke Taniguchi and Takuji Tsujimoto, the team of galactic archaeologists used ESA’s highly accurate Gaia space telescope to identify about 6,600 solar twins. The new study’s catalogue, which is 30 times larger than previous surveys, uncovered evidence of a mass migration where the Sun and its stellar siblings escaped the inner galaxy 4 to 6 billion years ago.

Escaping the galactic core is typically difficult, due to a ‘co-rotation barrier’ created by the Milky Way’s massive central bar structure. However, the team’s findings suggest the Sun joined a major outward surge that fundamentally reshaped our understanding of galactic evolution. These migratory bursts may be linked to external perturbations, such as ancient encounters with the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy.

By tracing the journeys of these stellar twins, scientists are finally solving the conundrum of how the Sun reached its current ‘suburban’ location.

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