The Milky Way may have undergone a dramatic change in orientation during its history, according to new research that helps explain a long-standing mystery about our galaxy. Using supercomputer simulations of galaxies like the Milky Way, a team of astronomers from Durham University found that galaxies with slowly rotating stellar haloes are more likely to have experienced a major 'disc flip', where the galaxy's disc changed its orientation by more than 90 degrees. The research is being presented this week at the Royal Astronomical Society's National Astronomy Meeting in Birmingham.

It's easy to think of our home galaxy as a relatively stable place, a neatly ordered disk sailing serenely through space like a frisbee – but it may be a lot more turbulent than…

While the Milky Way galaxy might look calm and stable today, scientists say a grand display of cosmic gymnastics once turned our world upside down.