Monoceros Ring

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Monoceros Ring is a proposed ring of stars around the Milky Way which consists of stars torn from the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy as it merges with the Milky Way over the course of billions of years. It is a complex ringlike structure which wraps around our galaxy three times, formed from the long filament of stars pulled from the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy by tidal forces as it orbits the Milky Way.

The stream of stars was first discovered in the early 21st century by astronomers conducting the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. It was in the course of investigating this ring of stars, and a closely spaced group of globular clusters similar to those associated with the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy, that the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy was discovered.

A new study by Yazan Momany using 2MASS data casts doubts on the nature of the Ring. The data is suggestive of the fact that the ring is actually part of the warped galactic disc.