Warped galaxy with the distribution of young stars (Cepheids) in its disk as inferred from the Milky Way Cepheids.
J. Skowron/OGLE/Astronomical Obs
Posted on 08/05/2019 4:01:46 PM PDT by BenLurkin
The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy with curved arms stretching out into space. Most depictions of our galaxy show it as being rather flat, but data from the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment at the university suggests the opposite.
The team, who describe our galaxy as being less a flat disc and more a “wobbly, uncooked pizza crust,” mapped the position of a specific type of star called Cepheids. Cepheids are pulsating stars and it’s easy for researchers to measure the distance between them and Earth. Using data from 2,431 Cepheids, the team was able to create its incredibly detailed map of the Milky Way.
Along with providing the most accurate look at the shape of our galaxy to date, the scientists also learned some interesting things about the stars they spotted along the way. Cepheids, it turns out, tend to be found in groups, and that might mean that they tend to form bursts.
Warped galaxy with the distribution of young stars (Cepheids) in its disk as inferred from the Milky Way Cepheids.
J. Skowron/OGLE/Astronomical Obs
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
It’s all Trump’s fault!
It's mildly interesting but what are we going to do with this info, cure a disease?
It might be a treatment for wanderlust.
I took astrophysics as an elective as an undergrad. Some if it is mind boggling, really. In the end it is useless information.
Killjoy.
What use is a newborn baby?
That’s really interesting. I never thought such a relatively short distance would get above the “galactic smog”, so to speak. Very exciting to think that a mission with such huge potential is so easily within our grasp.
Thanks for the explanation!
I was told, as an aspiring science fiction author, to avoid using the term, warp.
Does this mean warp drive is back on the accepted lexicon for sci-fi afficinados?
It’s KNOWLEDGE.
Who knows what it may mean to us, in the future?
I like Knowledge. It helps us to understand....stuff :-)
That’s really neat if it’s true. They tell us that many of the rings of Saturn, as they swirl around the planet, interlace around and in and out through each other, but do not and have not become mushed into one big conglomerate ring, even after all these thousands of years. Only God could do that. So I say, keep it up Professors. Tell us MORE about the wonders of God’s Creation you’re discovering!
AMEN!
If it is, yeah really exciting! Even if it isn't, the longer baseline by itself allows for a lot of interesting viewing. Imaging an accurate stereo view of the local neighborhood!
Even if it is thicker the smog should be getting less dense, we would still see through a glass darkly.
Suppose you need to be a full light year away?
At 0.01g that's a bit less than 15 years, still a LOT of fuel even with an ion engine, but maybe doable. Can the craft survive 15 years? Very likely. we have probes in deep space that have run for decades, and technology hasn't gotten worse in the meanwhile.
After the fuel runs out it coasts along fast enough to add another light year of distance every seven calendar years or so!
All bets are off if it hits something...
Yep - explains why I sometimes wobble when I walk when everything seems straight and level on the surface...must be some weird gravitational fluctuations from the galactic warpage....
Why ask what?
It’s a classic response to someone who says a new discovery or new invention is useless.
I took astrophysics as an elective. It was mildly amusing but really not very practical. Calculating the hydrogen content of a white dwarf can only get you so far.
The next part of the story, of course, is famous: Doctor Franklin is among the excited crowd watching the first balloon ascension from the Champ de Mars, August 27, 1783, and someone poses the inevitable conservative question—what good is it? Watching the balloon rise magically into the sky, the man who has busied himself with every novelty—with meteorology, inoculation, bifocals, lightning rods, postal service, hydrodynamics, even a sensible new stove—turns and replies: “What good is a newborn baby?” The epigram ricochets throughout Paris and the world.And
As the story is usually told, the prime minister or some other senior politician was given a demonstration of induction by Faraday. When asked “What good is it?” Faraday replied: “What good is a newborn baby?” Or maybe he said: “Soon you will be able to tax it.” The former version of the story originated in a letter sent in 1783 by Faraday’s great predecessor in matters electrical, the American philosopher and politician Benjamin Franklin (Nature, vol 157, p 196). As for the source of the latter, no one knows.Right now c appears to be the speed limit, it wasn't that long ago that it was said no one could breathe in a train going 30 mph and the passengers would suffocate (despite the manifest observation that a man easily endures a 60 mph hurricane!)
Perhaps string theory with its multiplicity of dimensions or dark matter with its God-knows-what will allow our betters in Washington to tax it!
Agreed. Seeing how Mudder Nature achieves fusion has absolutely no bearing on how we might solve the energy crisis and use petroleum as God intended, as a feed stock for plastics, paints, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, etc., and not wastefully burn it!
At the age when you and I were asking why, why, why, why, why to the annoyance of our parents, Newton was asking ‘What’s the goo’ of that?’ (I can’t find the reference, sorry)
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