Milky Way galaxy is warped and twisted, not flat
By Pallab Ghosh, Science correspondent for BBC News
1 August 2019
Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is "warped and twisted" and not flat as previously thought, new research shows. Analysis of the brightest stars in the galaxy shows that they do not lie on a flat plane as shown in academic texts and popular science books. Astronomers from Warsaw University speculate that it might have been bent out of shape by past interactions with nearby galaxies. The new three dimensional map has been published in the journal Science. The popular picture of the Milky Way as a flat disc is based on the observation of 2.5 million stars out of a possible 2.5 billion. The artists' impressions are therefore rough approximations of the truer shape of our galaxy, according to Dr Dorota Skowron of Warsaw University. "The internal structure and history of the Milky Way is still far from being understood, in part because it is extremely difficult to measure distances to stars at the outer regions of our galaxy," she said.
To gain a more accurate picture, Dr Skowron and her colleagues measured the distances of some of the brightest stars in the Milky Way, called Cepheid variable stars. These are massive young stars that burn hundreds, if not thousands, of times brighter than our own Sun. They can be so bright that they can be observed at the very edge of the galaxy. Not only that, they also pulsate at regular intervals at a rate that is directly related to their brightness. This enables astronomers to calculate their distance with great precision. Most of the stars were identified by the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) at Las Campanas Observatory (LCO) in Chile's southern Atacama Desert. Przemek Mroz, a member of the OGLE team, said that the results were surprising.
"Our results show that the Milky Way Galaxy is not flat. It is warped and twisted far away from the galactic centre. Warping may have happened through past interactions with satellite galaxies, intergalactic gas or dark matter (invisible material present in galaxies about which little in known)." The Polish results support an analysis of Cepheid variable stars published in February in Nature Astronomy journal by astronomers from Macquarie University in Australia and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
[I remember the flat Galaxy images in various books I’ve perused over the years. It made sense – spinning discs flatten out as they spin – right? Well, apparently the universe isn’t really as ‘neat and tidy’ as we think it is…. Which is COOL because that gives it more room for interesting surprises!]
5 comments:
To quote Mister Spock.....^_- .....fascinating.
i saw this in the Guadian and read it... double quote Mr. Spock...
This is wondrous stuff. We are so lucky to be living in a time when amazing discoveries are being made on a fairly regular basis. Sometimes we also lose sight as to how big and amazing the universe is as we live our everyday lives.
Fascinating and somehow not surprising. Makes me think of Einstein and a Chinese sci fi book I read called The Three Body Problem.
@ Stephen: The Universe is constantly fascinating.... Good, isn't it?
@ Mudpuddle: Love it.... So much STUFF out there. Awesome!
@ Brian: Indeed. We're down here looking into our palms when we could be looking @ the stars!
@ Judy: Not read that one although I've seen reviews of it. It'll be really interesting when we get people out there exploring. What things they'll find!!
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