. 24/7 Space News .
STELLAR CHEMISTRY
The Milky Way in a twist
by Staff Writers
Beijing, China (SPX) Feb 05, 2019

3D distribution of the classical Cepheids in the Milky Way's warped disk.

Our Milky Way galaxy's disk of stars is anything but stable and flat. Instead, it becomes increasingly 'warped' and twisted far away from the Milky Way's center, according to astronomers from National Astronomical Observatories of Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC).

From a great distance, our galaxy would look like a thin disk of stars that orbit once every few hundred million years around its central region, where hundreds of billions of stars, together with a huge mass of dark matter, provide the gravitational 'glue' to hold it all together.

But the pull of gravity becomes weaker far away from the Milky Way's inner regions. In the galaxy's far outer disk, the hydrogen atoms making up most of the Milky Way's gas disk are no longer confined to a thin plane, but they give the disk an S-like warped appearance.

"It is notoriously difficult to determine distances from the Sun to parts of the Milky Way's outer gas disk without having a clear idea of what that disk actually looks like," says Dr. CHEN Xiaodian, a researcher at NAOC and lead author of the article published in Nature Astronomy on Feb. 4.

"However, we recently published a new catalogue of well-behaved variable stars known as classical Cepheids, for which distances as accurate as 3 to 5% can be determined." That database allowed the team to develop the first accurate three-dimensional picture of our Milky Way out to its far outer regions.

Classical Cepheids are young stars that are some four to 20 times as massive as our Sun and up to 100,000 times as bright. Such high stellar masses imply that they live fast and die young, burning through their nuclear fuel very quickly, sometimes in only a few million years.

They show day- to month-long pulsations, which are observed as changes in their brightness. Combined with a Cepheid's observed brightness, its pulsation period can be used to obtain a highly reliable distance.

"Somewhat to our surprise, we found that in 3D our collection of 1339 Cepheid stars and the Milky Way's gas disk follow each other closely. This offers new insights into the formation of our home galaxy," says Prof.

Richard de Grijs from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, and senior co-author of the paper. "Perhaps more importantly, in the Milky Way's outer regions, we found that the S-like stellar disk is warped in a progressively twisted spiral pattern."

This reminded the team of earlier observations of a dozen other galaxies which also showed such progressively twisted spiral patterns. "Combining our results with those other observations, we concluded that the Milky Way's warped spiral pattern is most likely caused by 'torques' - or rotational forcing - by the massive inner disk," says Dr. LIU Chao, senior researcher and co-author of the paper.

"This new morphology provides a crucial updated map for studies of our galaxy's stellar motions and the origins of the Milky Way's disk," says Dr. DENG Licai, senior researcher at NAOC and co-author of the paper.

Research paper


Related Links
Chinese Academy of Sciences Headquarters
Stellar Chemistry, The Universe And All Within It


Thanks for being there;
We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain.

With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords.

Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year.

If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter
$5+ Billed Monthly


paypal only
SpaceDaily Contributor
$5 Billed Once


credit card or paypal


STELLAR CHEMISTRY
Milky Way's neighbors pick up the pace
Washington DC (SPX) Jan 23, 2019
After slowly forming stars for the first few billion years of their lives, the Magellanic Clouds, near neighbors of our own Milky Way galaxy, have upped their game and are now forming new stars at a fast clip. This new insight into the history of the Clouds comes from the first detailed chemical maps made of galaxies beyond the Milky Way. Named for explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who led the first European expedition to circumnavigate the globe, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are the Milky Way ... read more

Comment using your Disqus, Facebook, Google or Twitter login.



Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle

STELLAR CHEMISTRY
ISRO Unveils Human Space Flight Centre in Bengaluru

Waystation to the Solar System

Blue Origin to make 10th flight test of space tourist rocket

Duration of UAE Astronaut's Mission on Board ISS Reduced to 8 Days

STELLAR CHEMISTRY
ISRO Set To Launch Communication Satellite GSAT-31 On February 6

The Future of Space Prospecting: Surprising Rocket Fuel Unveiled

NASA Completes Booster Motor Segments for First Space Launch System Flight

China launched world's first rocket-deployed weather instruments from unmanned semi-submersible vehicle

STELLAR CHEMISTRY
InSight's Seismometer Now Has a Cozy Shelter on Mars

Research Uses Curiosity Rover to Measure Gravity on Mars

What Can Curiosity Tell Us About How a Martian Mountain Formed

Curiosity Says Farewell to Mars' Vera Rubin Ridge

STELLAR CHEMISTRY
China to send over 50 spacecraft into space via over 30 launches in 2019

China to deepen lunar exploration: space expert

China launches Zhongxing-2D satellite

China welcomes world's scientists to collaborate in lunar exploration

STELLAR CHEMISTRY
3400 new UK space jobs created

Asgardia Micro-Nation to Launch 10,000 Satellites to Make Web Free

OneWeb delays launch of satellites due to problems with Russian carrier rocket

Thales Alenia Space and Maxar Consortium Achieve Major Milestone in Design Phase of Telesat's LEO Satellite Constellation

STELLAR CHEMISTRY
South African-Scottish research team demonstrate fractal light from lasers

Environmentally stable laser emits exceptionally pure light

New 3D printer shapes objects with rays of light

Artificial intelligence ARTIST instantly captures materials' properties

STELLAR CHEMISTRY
Magnifying glass reveals unexpected intermediate mass exoplanets

Where Is Earth's Submoon?

Planetary collision that formed the Moon made life possible on Earth

Astronomers find star material could be building block of life

STELLAR CHEMISTRY
Sodium, Not Heat, Reveals Volcanic Activity on Jupiter's Moon Io

New Horizons' Newest and Best-Yet View of Ultima Thule

Missing link in planet evolution found

Juno's Latest Flyby of Jupiter Captures Two Massive Storms









The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2024 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. All articles labeled "by Staff Writers" include reports supplied to Space Media Network by industry news wires, PR agencies, corporate press officers and the like. Such articles are individually curated and edited by Space Media Network staff on the basis of the report's information value to our industry and professional readership. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Statement Our advertisers use various cookies and the like to deliver the best ad banner available at one time. All network advertising suppliers have GDPR policies (Legitimate Interest) that conform with EU regulations for data collection. By using our websites you consent to cookie based advertising. If you do not agree with this then you must stop using the websites from May 25, 2018. Privacy Statement. Additional information can be found here at About Us.