The Milky Way has not always been as it is now. It turned out that supernovae were actively exploding in it.

By the standards of astronomy, a billion years is not so much. So, there was already life on our planet, and there was oxygen in the atmosphere. And in the center of the Milky Way, due to the huge increase in activity, thousands of supernovae exploded in it. This is evidenced by a scientific article in the publication Nature Astronomy.

The European astrophysicists worked on the project under the leadership of Francisco Noger Lara (Institute of Astrophysics in Andalusia, Spain). The VLT telescope, located at the ESO Observatory, was equipped with the sophisticated HAWK-I instrument. The observations were carried out in the infrared range. He made it possible to discern the smallest details of the processes occurring in fine cosmic dust.

Astronomers have actually peered into the past of our galaxy. It turned out that the process of star formation is an unstable process. This contradicts modern views in astronomy.

The center of the galaxy is an area of ​​490 light-years in diameter located in the center of the galaxy. It revolves around an extremely massive black star called Sagittarius A.
After scientists examined the dense regions of the center of our galaxy, they came to the conclusion that four fifths of the stars in it formed only in the first half of its existence - from 8 to 13.5 billion years ago.

Then, for about 6 billion years, the era of relative calm lasted, when very few stars formed. This time period ended with a big bang about a billion years ago. Then supernovae noticeably intensified.

The reasons for such a sharp change in the activity of stars have not yet been established. According to scientists, the burst of supernovae could be affected by the ingress of matter from a dwarf galaxy absorbed by the Milky Way.

In almost 100 million years (this is nothing on a cosmic scale), a lot of stars have formed. The pace of this process was so great that star material weighing a hundred solar masses (2 * 1029, or 200 octillion tons) a year arose. In a modern galaxy, these processes occur hundreds of times slower.

At that time, large stars appeared, living at short intervals. The time of their existence is no more than 100 million years. Such objects end their life in a supernova explosion. According to European astronomers, the described activity was one of the most turbulent in the entire history of the Milky Way. Subsequent studies can further visualize events related to the development of our galaxy.

The results of astronomers' research can shed light on the mysteries of the formation of galaxies and the final outcome of their existence. It will be interesting in finding the answer to the question of what awaits our solar system and planet in the future.