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This illustration shows what the Milky Way looks like, with two large spiral arms.
NASA / JPL-Caltech
Astronomers have done an impressive job of figuring out what our Milky Way galaxy looks like. We know it’s a spiral galaxy with two main arms. A new study reveals that one of the galaxy’s minor arms has a “break”, a set of stars and gas clouds protruding.
NASA described Tuesday’s rupture as like a splinter coming out of the woods. “Stretching some 3,000 light years, it is the first major structure identified with an orientation so radically different from that of the arm,” the space agency said in a press release.
The structure that emerges includes young stars and a cluster of nebulae, the Lagoon Nebula and the Eagle Nebula, home to The famous image of the pillars of the creation of Hubble. Instead of holding tight to the spiral of the galaxy’s Sagittarius arm, the structure protrudes at a noticeable angle.
Stars and star-forming gas clouds form the “breach” that protrudes from the Sagittarius arm of the Milky Way. Star shapes represent regions of star formation.
NASA / JPL-Caltech
Caltech astrophysicist Michael Kuhn is the lead author of the study, published last month in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
The research team used data from NASA The Spitzer space telescope, now retired and the The Gaia Space Observatory of the European Space Agency to locate newborn stars and measure distances from them to create a 3D look at the arm segment.
“When we put the Gaia and Spitzer data together and finally see this detailed three-dimensional map, we can see that there is a bit of complexity in this region that just wasn’t apparent before,” Kuhn said. Scientists have spotted similar structures in spiral galaxies as seen by our telescopes. These structures have been called spurs or feathers.
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“The stars of the newly discovered structure probably formed around the same time, in the same general area, and were only influenced by forces acting in the galaxy, including gravity and shear due to the rotation of the galaxy. the galaxy, ”NASA said.
The Milky Way is our home (Earth resides in Orion’s little arm), and determining the details of its structure will continue to be a challenge. As NASA said, it’s like standing in the middle of Times Square and trying to draw a map of the entire island of Manhattan.
The discovery of “shards” gives scientists a new perspective on the galaxy. It may have distinctive spiral arms, but not all stars and nebulae color in the lines.
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