Science in Public: The Milky Way Is Warped

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bystander
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Science in Public: The Milky Way Is Warped

Post by bystander » Tue Feb 05, 2019 6:43 pm

The Milky Way Is Warped
Science in Public | 2019 Feb 05

The first accurate 3D map of our galaxy reveals its true shape: warped and twisted.

Astronomers from Macquarie University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences have used 1339 ‘standard’ stars to map the real shape of our home galaxy ...

They found the Milky Way’s disc of stars becomes increasingly ‘warped’ and twisted the further away the stars are from the galaxy’s centre. ...

Trying to determine the real shape of our galaxy is like standing in a Sydney garden and trying to determine the shape of Australia. But, for the past 50 years there have been indications that the hydrogen clouds in the Milky Way are warped. The new map shows that the warped Milky Way disc also contains young stars. It confirms that the warped spiral pattern is caused by torque from the spinning of the Milky Way’s massive inner disc of stars. ...

The team built their map using 1339 large pulsating stars each up to 100,000 brighter than our sun. Data on these classical Cepheid stars were provided by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE).

Astronomers have observed a dozen other galaxies which showed similar progressively twisted spiral patterns in their outer regions. So our Milky Way’s twists are rare but not unique. ...

An Intuitive 3D Map of the Galactic Warp’s Precession Traced by Classical Cepheids ~ Xiaodian Chen et al
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Ann
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Re: Science in Public: The Milky Way Is Warped

Post by Ann » Wed Feb 06, 2019 5:44 am

I am surprised that Gaia has not already detected this.

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Re: Science in Public: The Milky Way Is Warped

Post by Nitpicker » Wed Feb 06, 2019 5:59 am

My reading of this paper, suggests that the results were also dependent on the data from Gaia.

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Re: Science in Public: The Milky Way Is Warped

Post by Nitpicker » Wed Feb 06, 2019 6:20 am

And this news article suggests that Gaia will eventually yield much more ...
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/201 ... p/10776906

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Re: Science in Public: The Milky Way Is Warped

Post by neufer » Wed Feb 06, 2019 4:12 pm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Gardens wrote:
Trying to determine the real shape of our galaxy is like standing in a Sydney garden and trying to determine the shape of Australia.
<<Sydney Gardens is a public open space at the end of Great Pulteney Street in Bath, Somerset, England. The gardens were laid out in the 1790s, to plans by Thomas Baldwin, as a commercial pleasure garden with a variety of attractions. Features included a maze, grotto, sham castle and an artificial rural scene with moving figures powered by a clockwork mechanism. Events included promenades and public breakfasts which were attended by Jane Austen among others. The gardens were illuminated by over 15,000 "variegated lamps". A 12-metre high Minerva's Temple built in 1911 for the Festival of Empire at The Crystal Palace was moved to Sydney Gardens.>>
Art Neuendorffer

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