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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.'"
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.
Needs an artists rendition, the second most important thing in astronomy.
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I bet the new arm has Geth.
This barred-spiral structure makes the Milky Way look a lot like NGC 1365.
Here is what it might look like:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Phot-08a-99-hires.jpg
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I have still not gotten a good explanation why galaxies aren't thought of as large accretion disks, since there is a large black hole (or more than one) at the center of almost every galaxy.
The article here seems to indicate that what we're seeing might be the equivalent of a 3 dimensional accretion "disk" wherein the center "drains" along the poles.
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Assuming our universe is the 3-dimensional surface of a 4-sphere, then yes -- just wait long enough, and photons from our galaxy will come zinging back from every direction in the sky. Of course, our sun will have burned out long before then, so we'll probably cease to care...
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"And this, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped."
Can anyone provide any insight as to how physics would allow this? A near miss with another galaxy, or very dense object? A wandering black hole scooching by and "warping" it? Must take a lot of energy to warp a galaxy.
IANAAP, but a collision with another galaxy, such as the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy, perhaps.
http://www.astro.virginia.edu/~mfs4n/sgr/
(videos at the bottom should provide more than enough detail)
Light travels rather slowly considering the scale of our local group of galaxies.
It's a lot like a warped record. As the stars rotate past the Magellanic Clouds, the rest of the stars in the arm slowly shift and warp as they pass it. Then settle down and get flat again. Of course, this takes about 100,000 years or so, so we don't notice it happening.
Well, it is good that we figure this out before we start to someday send ships all around the place. Sure, we can maybe design a warp drive some day, but without an accurate map, we're boned.