Welcome to Quantum Magazine's podcast.

Each episode we bring you stories about developments in science and mathematics.

I'm Susan Vallett.

When the cozen hunter-gatherers of sub-Saharan Africa gazed upon the meandering trail of stars and dust in the night sky.

They saw the embers of a campfire.

Polynesian sailors perceived a cloud-eating shark.

The ancient Greeks saw a stream of milk, gala, which would eventually give rise to the

modern term galaxy.

But now, astronomers are rewriting the history of our galaxy.

That's next.

While you're listening to podcasts, remember to check out the other Quantum Magazine podcast,

The Joy of X.

Host Steven Strogatz interviews top-tier scientists and mathematicians.

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In the 20th century, astronomers discovered that our silver river is just one piece of a vast island of stars,

and they penned their own galactic origin story. In the simplest telling,

it held that our Milky Way galaxy came together nearly 14 billion years ago when enormous clouds

of gas and dust came together under the force of gravity. Over time, two structures emerged. First, a vast,

spherical halo, and later, a dense, bright disk. Billions of years after that, our own solar

system spun into being inside this disk so that when we look out at night, we see spilt milk, an edge-on view of the

...