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

Sydney Morning Herald ^ | May 7, 2004

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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

[ColoradoSlim]

Oh, of course! Right you are, so sorry. I think trying to respond all day to longshadow, first in humorous way and then finally giving in to him by offering up a more lucid conversational discussion of the subject at hand must have exhausted my cleverness reserve. Thank you for snapping me out of my momentary stupor ;-)

[null and void]

No problem!

[Young Werther]

...and I suggest that we name it

"The Car Key Nebula"

[Larry Lucido]

Wow. I wouldn't want to be standing in the way when one of those arms came whipping by. I bet the ends are moving along pretty quick.

[Las Vegas Dave]

If that is a picture of our MILKY WAY, I want to meet the photographer....(Calling quix!)

[Quix]

I thought something very similar,

Where was the perspective and how derived!

[Doctor Stochastic]

"Beyond the Mountains of Madness" comes to mind.

[ColoradoSlim]

Thank you. Have you ever seen any Ibex in your travels around NM? I read somewhere the state is overrun with them...just curious.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Just in the south. Around White Sands. A herd was released many years ago. Link

[ColoradoSlim]

Very interesting. Thanks doc. Still curious... If I may ask another question; might one assume by your screen name that you are a mathematician or physicists?

[Captain Beyond]

bump

[Doctor Stochastic]

Of late, mathematics. (Other things in the past.)

[ColoradoSlim]

Very cool Doc. I have a brainiac friend in WA that is a PhD of Mathematics along with several others including Physics and Electrical Engineering. He's semiretired now, (only 50) just "plays" in his lab and is actually dabbling in my field now. Math is one of the main disciplines (along with Physics, English, History, etc...)that held me back in my pursuit of a career in Astronomy. I admire mathematics as the "purest" science.

[VadeRetro]

If that is a picture of our MILKY WAY, I want to meet the photographer....(Calling quix!)

Mushrooms. You can find the right ones in Mexico.