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Why is this important: Astronomers have discovered a previously undetected feature of our Milky Way galaxy – a cluster of young stars and star-forming gas clouds protruding from one of the galaxy’s iconic spiral arms “like a shard coming out of a wooden plank “. With each subsequent discovery, we slowly unravel the secrets of the universe and learn more about how we came to be.
The structure is said to extend approximately 3,000 light years from the arm of Sagittarius and was discovered using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope (now retired) along with data from the Space Agency’s Gaia mission. European. It has four nebulae: the Eagle Nebula, the Omega Nebula, the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula.
Michael Kuhn, astrophysicist at Caltech and lead author of the study, said a key property of spiral arms is how they wrap around a galaxy. “Most models of the Milky Way suggest that the Sagittarius arm forms a spiral that has a pitch angle of around 12 degrees, but the structure we looked at really stands out at an angle of almost 60 degrees.”
The structure itself, sometimes known as a spur or feather, is not so unique as it has been spotted in other spiral galaxies. But making key discoveries like this about the Milky Way is especially difficult given Earth’s position inside the galaxy (in Orion’s arm). “It’s like standing in the middle of Times Square and trying to draw a map of Manhattan Island,” NASA noted in its article.
Another co-author of the article, Robert Benjamin, said the discovery was a reminder that there are many uncertainties surrounding the large-scale structure of the Milky Way. “This structure is a small piece of the Milky Way, but it could tell us something important about the galaxy as a whole,” he added.
The team’s article can be read in the international journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Image credit Jeremy Thomas
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