Milky Way 'arm' found (50-year-old map of the Milky Way will have to be redrawn)

Sydney Morning Herald ^ | May 7, 2004

[dead]

A 50-year-old map of the Milky Way will have to be redrawn after Australian astronomers made the astonishing discovery that our spiral galaxy has a huge, outflung arm, New Scientist reports.

The vast gassy limb comprises an arc of hydrogen 77,000 light years long and several thousand light years thick, running along the Milky Way's outermost edge and sweeping around the four main arms that swirl out from the galaxy's core.

As it is not in the visible part of the light spectrum, it cannot be seen by telescope.

Astronomers at the Australia National Telescope Facility in the Sydney suburb of Epping made the discovery in a project to map the distribution of hydrogen gas across the galaxy.

Most of the Milky Way is obscured by interstellar dust, but hydrogen emits radio waves which pass through the dust clouds and which thus make it detectable by radio telescope.

"We see it [the arm] over a huge area of sky," lead astronomer Naomi McClure-Griffiths said.

She speculates the arm is a long gaseous tendril that was once joined up with another spiral limb but became detached.

The study will be published in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Astronomers are amazed that the feature had been overlooked, New Scientist says.

"I was absolutely flabbergasted. It was quite clearly seen in some of the previous surveys but it was never pointed out or given a name," said Tom Dame at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics in Massachusetts.

AFP

[LiteKeeper]

bump

[null and void]

Well if it was a new Galaxy it could be called Snickers, but, as it stands, its just an off shoot. hmmmmmm maybe Milky Way Lite?

Nope. Not in visible light. We'd have to call it Milky Way Dark...

[null and void]

Don't go pulling a LittleJoe on us, here...

[ColoradoSlim]

Thanks friend, actually; Jules Verne, HG wells, HR Haggard, Larry Niven, John Wyndham and other such tripe. What's the best work would your recommend for someone that hasn't read a Lovecraft piece yet?

[poindexters brother]

What is Known and What is Thought to be Known

I came across this comment in a forum I was reading recently. It's pretty good!

A friend suggests the following little pair of experiments for anybody wishing to better comprehend the present state of astronomical knowledge:

Get onto the Google search engine and type in "Astronomers surprised".

The resulting list goes on, and on, and on.................... and on. It's good for us to keep aware of how surprised they always are.

Then go into Google again and type "Astronomers confident" This will also produce a magnificently long listing of how absolutely confident they are about their knowledge. Strange how many times they are "surprised" and yet they maintain such absolute "confidence".

I wonder what the surprise/confident ratio is. Both lists seem infinitely long....

[ColoradoSlim]

I was actually thinking of Kerry....

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

But it really lloks something like this with a single straight "bar" going thru the center of hte galaxy - http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~soper/ImGalaxies/m83.gif

What kind of stupid dupes do you think we are? Every body knows about Milky Way bars. Ummmm.

[ColoradoSlim]

I was hoping you might consider me if only for a moment, in the style of Quidam.

Slim
Slim

[muleskinner]

ignotum per ignotius

[Little Pig]

Pick up one of the Lovecraft Anthologies. That's usually the best bet, since most of his stuff is fairly short stories, along with some seriously bent poetry. The best anthology (IMHO) is "Bloodcurdling tales of Horror and the Macabre", followed by "At the Mountains of Madness and other tales of Terror". "Bloodcurdling" has some of the better-known tales, including his most famous creation, the hideous god-thing Cthulhu.

[mdmathis6]

" vast gassy limb"

When galaxies fart!

[Larry Lucido]

"Lately I actually wish to live a very long life - just to not miss anything."

Don't stick around too long. Think "global warming" is bad now? Just wait about five billion years!

[Shryke]

This discovery was predicted by Nostradamus

This was actually first predicted last night, in the final episode of Friends. I swear.

[MeekOneGOP]

Interesting, thanks !

[VadeRetro]

This discovery was predicted by Nostradamus. I can hear the pages of his works being flipped through, searching for the appropriately obscure lines.

Actually, it was predicted by his little brother, Nicky. So good luck finding it.

[Physicist]

Well if it was a new Galaxy it could be called Snickers

No, it can't. That name was taken in 1975.

[Billthedrill]

Interesting cover story. It's like they expect us to believe this thing was always out there but nobody saw it. Right.

What I want to know is who put it out there last week and why? And when did Bush know?

[PatrickHenry]

Am I missing something here? The article seems to say that this arm is just a cloud of hydrogen. Are there no stars there?

[VadeRetro]

Am I missing something here?

No, you got it by post 38. I win the pool!

[farmfriend]

Are there no stars there?

LOL. Some people are just never satisfied.