{"id":2750,"date":"2021-09-10T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-10T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/?p=2750"},"modified":"2021-09-16T06:29:48","modified_gmt":"2021-09-16T06:29:48","slug":"astronomers-found-a-3000-light-year-long-splinter-in-a-milky-way-arm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/astronomers-found-a-3000-light-year-long-splinter-in-a-milky-way-arm\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronomers Found a 3,000-Light-Year-Long \u201cSplinter\u201d in a Milky Way \u201cArm\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It has taken centuries for our understanding about our place in the universe to reach this point of maturation. Luckily for us, we have the advantage of new technology on our side; it has never been easier to discover and learn about where we are: our planet, our solar system, and our galaxy, among others. It\u2019s no surprise, then, that the scientists hard at work figuring out everything around us eventually stumble upon something new; that seems to be the case this time around, as our seemingly orderly Milky Way Galaxy isn\u2019t as standard as we thought. There appears to be a \u201csplinter\u201d jutting out of one of our galaxy\u2019s arms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This image shows where the newly-discovered galactic \u201csplinter\u201d actually is, with respect to the galactic center and our own Sun. (NASA\/JPL-Caltech, 2021) <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cspur\u201d or \u201csplinter\u201d in the Milky Way\u2019s spiral formation is located in the galaxy\u2019s Sagittarius<\/em> arm (our own solar system is located near the Orion <\/em>arm beside it). The \u201csplinter\u201d stretches for about 3,000 light years\u2014which might seem far out, but given that the galaxy has a visible diameter of 100,000-200,000 light years, it might appear small in comparison. That\u2019s not to say that it is something miniscule, though; that stretch is still about 2.83 \u00d7 1016<\/sup> km, meaning a car running at highway speeds of around 100 km\/h would take at least 32.3 million<\/em> years to traverse that distance. The spur starts at about 4,000 light-years away from the Sun, in an area that\u2019s quite reputable among astronomers for containing famous nebulae, such as the Omega Nebula and the Eagle Nebula. (The Eagle Nebula contains the structures pictured by the Hubble Space Telescope in the famous \u201cPillars of Creation\u201d photo back in 1995.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The \u201cPillars of Creation,\u201d within the Eagle Nebula. (NASA\/Hester\/Scowen, 1995) <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Study co-author and University of Wisconsin-Whitewater astrophysicist Robert Benjamin mentioned that the finding might be able to tell us \u201csomething significant about the galaxy as a whole,\u201d and that \u201cthere are many uncertainties about the large-scale structure of the Milky Way, and we need to look at the details if we want to understand that bigger picture.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Data gathered using NASA\u2019s Spitzer Space Telescope and the ESA\u2019s Gaia satellite revealed that the spur actually branches off almost entirely perpendicular to the rest of the Sagittarius arm, with the stars within the arm all traveling in the same velocity and direction. This all leads to the hypothesis that this group of stars likely formed at around the same time. This may also imply that an external object passed through the Sagittarius arm some time ago, gravitationally influencing this group of stars and \u201cpulled\u201d them out of the arm, stretching their formation by 3,000 light-years. As to what the identity of this galactic trespasser is\u2014the researchers won\u2019t know until they gather more data about the finding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Benjamin, co-author of the study, is also a principal investigator of the Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire (GLIMPSE) catalog, which includes about 100,000 stars discovered by the Spitzer Space Telescope during its lifetime. This discovery made use of the data within this catalog. The study has also been published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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