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Bar at Milky Way's heart revealed
New Scientist ^ | 8/16/05 | Maggie McKee

Posted on 08/16/2005 7:04:45 PM PDT by LibWhacker

The Milky Way is not a perfect spiral galaxy but instead sports a long bar through its centre, according to new infrared observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.

Galaxies come in a wide variety of shapes usually thought to be produced by gravitational interactions with nearby objects. Some spiral galaxies look like pinwheels, with their arms curving out from a central bulge, while others have a straight bar at their centres.

Radio telescopes detected gas that hinted at a bar at the heart of the Milky Way in the late 1980s. A decade later, observations with the near infrared survey 2MASS bolstered the case for a bar, but dust in the centre of the galaxy obscured the observations.

Now, astronomers have used Spitzer to peer through that dust at slightly longer wavelengths, observing 30 million stars in the galactic plane in the region around the centre of the galaxy.

They found that the central bar was much longer than previous observations had suggested - reaching about half the distance between the galaxy's centre and our Sun. The bar is estimated to stretch a total of about 27,000 light years from end to end.

"It is a major component of our galaxy and has basically remained hidden until now," says team member Ed Churchwell, an astronomer at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, US. "The fact that it's large means it's going to have a major effect on the dynamics of the inner part of our galaxy."

Bar food

Stars in the spiral arms circle the galaxy in roughly circular orbits. But the old, red stars in the bar appear to be on more elliptical paths that take them more directly towards and away from the galaxy's core, where a colossal black hole is thought to lurk.

"This bar probably does carry matter into the centre of the galaxy and feeds the black hole," Churchwell told New Scientist.

But it is still not clear what the discovery reveals about the Milky Way's past. "I don't think anybody really fully understands how bars are formed," says Churchwell. "What we do know is that it appears there are so many barred galaxies they must be rather stable. Astronomers have to come up with some kind of model that can explain the stability of these structures."

The team will publish its results in an upcoming issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters and has requested more time on Spitzer to study the innermost part of the Milky Way.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: astronomy; bar; galaxy; milky; milkyway; science; space; spitzer; spitzertelescope; telescope; way
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To: SkyPilot

Yes.


41 posted on 08/16/2005 7:47:06 PM PDT by Soul Seeker
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To: Buggman

42.


42 posted on 08/16/2005 7:48:11 PM PDT by LouD
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear
what is the actual significance of this finding?

It's actually confirmation rather than finding.

43 posted on 08/16/2005 7:48:51 PM PDT by RightWhale (Withdraw from the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty and open the Land Office)
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To: bikepacker67

GMTA - But I actually managed to do it on Post #42 ;-)


44 posted on 08/16/2005 7:49:13 PM PDT by LouD
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To: hophead
I think we're only allowed to post "OOOHHH" or "AHHHH" or speculate on the angular momentum of the bar.

Please respect the sanctity of this thread. NO HUMOR!

45 posted on 08/16/2005 7:49:34 PM PDT by OSHA (I've got a hole in my head too, but that's beside the point.)
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear

"So what is the actual significance of this finding?"


This is the answer we have all been looking for. Now we know why space aliens have been visiting this outpost of the universe. We are the only galaxy with a bar. Thay have been coming here asking for directions.


46 posted on 08/16/2005 7:51:01 PM PDT by hophead (" Shi'ite happens..")
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To: don-o; LibWhacker
27,000 light years across.

---sigh---

27,000 years at the maximum possible speed in the universe.

So much we'll never get to explore.

Hell---it'll take forever just to get communications 1/27th of the way across (1000 years!!!!)
47 posted on 08/16/2005 7:51:03 PM PDT by TitansAFC ("It would be a hard government that should tax its people 1/10th part of their income."-Ben Franklin)
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To: LibWhacker

World's worst mall map.


48 posted on 08/16/2005 7:51:32 PM PDT by Darkwolf377 ("The dumber people think you are, the more surprised they'll be when you kill them."-Wm. Clayton)
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To: RightWhale

Our galaxy is definitely amongst the more impressive in the universe, and I'd imagine functions as very popular desktop wallpaper on many a far-off planet. The Magellanic civilizations have an especially nice view, and probably even some very interesting apocalyptic myths about when we're gonna suck them in to their fiery doom. =)


49 posted on 08/16/2005 7:52:11 PM PDT by AntiGuv ("Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick)
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To: bikepacker67

42 = 6 X 9 (in base 13)


50 posted on 08/16/2005 7:54:11 PM PDT by TomT in NJ
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To: ClearBlueSky
A bar! Fantastic. Wonder how the drinks are- bet the prices are terrible but there's lots of parking!

And as at many earthside bars, there's a black hole in there waiting to gobble up the unwary.

51 posted on 08/16/2005 7:54:27 PM PDT by El Gato
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To: MarkL

I'll take a gargleblaster to go.

Cheers,

knews hound

http://knewshound.blogspot.com/


52 posted on 08/16/2005 7:54:33 PM PDT by knews_hound (Out of the NIC ,into the Router, out to the Cloud....Nothing but 'Net)
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To: TitansAFC
Arthur C. Clarke wrote a great essay called something like "We Will Never Conquer The Stars," about how the sheer size of it all means we are pretty much stuck here. One interesting bit, used often by SF writers before him, is how any generation starships going out there will have no connection to Earth after a generation.

Of course give Rosie O'Donnell a few more cheesecakes and she'll turn into a black hole and draw the rest of the galaxy closer...

53 posted on 08/16/2005 7:55:07 PM PDT by Darkwolf377 ("The dumber people think you are, the more surprised they'll be when you kill them."-Wm. Clayton)
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To: stainlessbanner
...Looks like the Greeks enjoyed a little homebrew hooch

Not to mention having the makings of the

first BBQ grill...brew and BBQ, life was good.

54 posted on 08/16/2005 7:55:53 PM PDT by Covenantor
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To: yankeedame

55 posted on 08/16/2005 7:55:56 PM PDT by Fester Chugabrew
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To: Covenantor
Step One: Rotating Ball.

Step Two:

Step Three: Profit.

56 posted on 08/16/2005 7:55:59 PM PDT by I see my hands (Until this civil war heats up.. have a nice day.)
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To: AntiGuv

OTOH, if we are alone, as we appear to be, nobody but us cares that our home galaxy is the most impressive one for millions of light-years in any direction. We care because we need to feel part of something important somehow.


57 posted on 08/16/2005 7:56:29 PM PDT by RightWhale (Withdraw from the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty and open the Land Office)
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear
So what is the actual significance of this finding?

My (very amateur) guess is that whatever the very massive object is at the center of our galaxy, it is probably binary. Perhaps it is a pair of black holes or perhaps something yet to be discovered. That would account for the eliptical orbits of the stars closest to the center. Just a guess.

58 posted on 08/16/2005 7:57:11 PM PDT by GallopingGhost
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To: No2much3

I wander onto to this thread out of curiosity. I'm sure there must be a ping list somewhere. Try searching keyword "space"


59 posted on 08/16/2005 7:57:32 PM PDT by Covenantor
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To: Acts 2:38
The real deal


60 posted on 08/16/2005 7:57:37 PM PDT by OSHA (I've got a hole in my head too, but that's beside the point.)
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