Long before it became the luminous spiral galaxy we call home, the Milky Way was a sprawling, chaotic swarm of thousands of small galaxies, new research shows.The findings suggest that in the first 2 billion years after the Big Bang, the region of the universe that would become our galaxy was littered with thousands of smaller galaxies of many sizes and shapes. Over time, these galaxies collided and merged into the single galaxy in which we reside today."Looking at these results, it's very clear that the physics happening right after the Big Bang has direct impact on what we see today in the local universe," study co-author Harley Katz, an assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at...