The Loving Embrace of the Milky Way
SMRTR summary
Our home galaxy just got a little bigger. Researchers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton have discovered that the Milky Way's outermost spiral arms stretch much farther than anyone previously calculated.
The team measured vast distances between dust clouds at the galaxy's edges and studied rings formed around gamma-ray bursts from collapsing or merging stars.
"This is a very direct way, relying only on geometry, to precisely measure distances to the Milky Way's spiral arms," said Beatrice Vaia, who led the study as a Ph.D. student in Italy. She noted that most other methods depend on assumptions about galactic rotation that grow increasingly unreliable toward the outer edges.
The findings, published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, could help astronomers build more accurate maps of both the Milky Way and the vast clouds of dust drifting through interstellar space. Turns out, home is bigger than we thought.
SMRTR provides this summary for quick context. The original article belongs to Nautilus.
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