Hubble discovers SHIELD protecting Milky Way's two largest satellite galaxies

Hubble discovers SHIELD protecting Milky Way's two largest satellite galaxies
The corona cocoons the two dwarf galaxies and prevents gas from being siphoned off by our home galaxy (Hubble Space Telescope)

The Hubble Space Telescope is a gift that keeps giving, having made a series of groundbreaking discoveries in a career spanning three decades now. For all we know, it may have solved another outer space mystery, this time revealing how the Milky Way's two largest satellite galaxies remain intact and capable of forming new stars.

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Astronomers have been perplexed by the phenomenon for the longest time considering the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds have been unraveling and leaving behind trails of gaseous debris for billions of years as they orbit one another and are pulled towards the Milky Way. Nonetheless, the dwarf galaxies continue to form stellar material despite doubts that they wouldn't have enough gas to make them. Hubble has now provided data suggesting that the Magellanic system is surrounded by a protective shield of hot supercharged gas called a corona, which cocoons the two dwarf galaxies and prevents gas from being siphoned off by our home galaxy.