At the hearts of galaxies, two long-mysterious structures — nuclear star clusters and stellar discs — have resisted explanation for decades, appearing unrelated despite their proximity. A team led by SungWon Kwak at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam has now shown, through advanced simulation, that these structures are not rivals but companions, nourished by the same cosmic mechanism and growing in quiet concert across billions of years. The galactic bar, a rotating bridge of stars threading through spiral galaxies like our own Milky Way, acts as a great funnel — drawing gas inward