Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is truly deformed, at least around the edges.
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It turns out that our galaxy, the Milky Way, is truly deformed, at least around the far edges.
Scientists in China and Australia have published an updated 3D map of the Milky Way.
They used 1,339 pulsating stars, young stars, recently cataloged, larger and brighter than our sun, to map the shape of the galaxy.
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The farther from the center, the more deformation or torsion there is in the outer disk of hydrogen gas in the Milky Way.
The researchers say that the deformed spiral pattern is probably caused by the rotating force of the massive inner disk of the stars.
Generally, we think that spiral galaxies are quite flat, like Andromeda, which can be easily seen through a telescope,
Richard de Grijs of Macquarie University said in a statement from Sydney, who participated in the study.
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The principal investigator, Xiaodian Chen of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, said it is difficult to determine the distances from the sun to the periphery of the Milky Way,
"without having a clear idea of what that disk really looks like." The stars on which his team map is based, known as classical Cepheids, provided substantial measurement accuracy.
At least a dozen other galaxies seem to have warped edges in a similar spiral pattern, so, in that respect, we are hardly unique.
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