Newly-Discovered Arm of Milky Way Gives Warped Structure

eldavojohn writes "Researchers are now suggesting that a newly-discovered arm of the Milky Way Galaxy gives it a warped structure. Accumulated evidence leads them to claim that an 18-kpc-long arm exists on the other side of the galaxy and this arm traverses some 50 degrees across our sky as an extension of the Scutum-Centaurus Arm (which is one of the two major arms of our galaxy, the other being the Perseus Arm that we can see much more clearly). The researchers conclude that this extension of the Scutum-Centaurus Arm is partially obscured behind the middle of our galaxy because our galaxy is warped 'like the cap from a freshly-opened beer bottle.'"

Comments

Who decided?

[dogmatixpsych]

Who decided that these are arms? Could they not be legs? What about just appendages? Maybe what we call arms are really the Milky Way's hair. If that were the case it might just throw all of our understanding of cosmology out the proverbial window.

Re:Looks a lot like NGC 1365

[HtR]

I don't remember the NGC 1365. Who was it's captain and which series and episode did it appear in?