The solar system is located within the disk, about 27,000 light-years from the galactic center. The Milky Way’s disk consists of four spiral arms and has a diameter of about 120,000 light-years. Scientists have so far believed that the Milky Way is a typical barred spiral galaxy comprising a bar-shaped core region surrounded by a flat disk of gas, dust, and stars. The research provides a crucial and the most detailed map till date for studies of our galaxy’s stellar motions and the origins of the Milky Way’s disk. Warping of the disc has been detected before, but this is the first time we can use individual objects to trace its shape in three dimensions,” the researchers say in their findings, published in the journal Science. “Our map shows that the Milky Way disk is not flat, it is warped and twisted far away from the galactic center. Skowron / OGLE / Astronomical Observatory, University of Warsaw).Īccording to scientists, warping may have been caused by past interactions with satellite galaxies, interactions with intergalactic gas or dark matter. It reveals the S-like structure of the Milky Way’s warped stellar disc (as seen in the image above by J. The map demonstrates that the Milky Way disk is not flat, it is warped at distances greater than 25,000 light-years from the galactic center. The newly constructed three-dimensional map of the Milky Way - reported by Polish astronomers from the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Warsaw - is the first map that is based on direct distances to thousands of individual objects, as distant as the expected boundary of the Galactic disk. By measuring the distance from our sun to thousands of individual pulsating stars scattered across the Milky Way, researchers have charted our galaxy on a larger scale than ever before. Astronomers have created the most detailed three-dimensional map of our galaxy, revealing the true shape of the Milky Way: warped and twisted.
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