Odd Peanut Mapped at the Heart of our Galaxy

Two groups of astronomers have used data from ESO telescopes to make the best three-dimensional map yet of the central parts of the Milky Way. They have found that the inner regions take on a peanut-like, or X-shaped, appearance from some angles. This odd shape was mapped by using public data from ESO’s VISTA survey telescope along with measurements of the motions of hundreds of very faint stars in the central bulge.

One of the most important and massive parts of the galaxy is the galactic bulge. This huge central cloud of about 10,000 million stars spans thousands of light-years, but its structure and origin were not well understood.

Unfortunately, from our vantage point from within the galactic disc, the view of this central region — at about 27 000 light-years’ distance — is heavily obscured by dense clouds of gas and dust. Astronomers can only obtain a good view of the bulge by observing longer wavelength light, such as infrared radiation, which can penetrate the dust clouds.

Earlier observations from the 2MASS infrared sky survey had already hinted that the bulge had a mysterious X-shaped structure. Now, two groups of scientists have used new observations from several of ESO’s telescopes to get a much clearer view of the bulge’s structure.

Chapters nine and ten in both Darwin and Jones' works have to do with the Geological Record.

In Jones' work, he writes ...

The archives of the rocks is a series of snapshots, taken at long intervals with a badly focused camera.

Copernicus and Galileo put an end to the idea that space could be measured in human terms.

The very title of his (Darwin's) greatest work -- On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life -- joins the course of change within a species to the grander process that causes new forms to appear. DNA is a river from the pase. If the trickle seen today is driven by selection, why should its majestic passage through time not obey the same rules.

It is possible to argue that all the great leading facts in paleontology seem simple to follow on the theory of descent with modification. Old forms are supplanted by new and improved forms, produced by the laws of variation that still act around us, and preserved by natural selection. Like the bed of a great river, the course of evolution is in its substance simple.

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