Milky Way Galaxy Has Four Spiral Arms, New Study Confirms

www.sci-news.com...

A 12-year study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society has confirmed that our Milky Way Galaxy has four spiral arms, following years of debate that it has only two arms.

In 2008, scientists using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope scoured our Galaxy for infrared light emitted by stars. They revealed about 110 million stars, but only evidence of two spiral arms.

The astronomers behind the new study used several radio telescopes to individually observe about 1,650 massive stars in the Galaxy. The distances and luminosities of these stars were calculated, revealing a distribution across four spiral arms.

We have all heard from various sources that our galaxy was more like the Andromeda galaxy with it's beautifully spaced multi-limbed vortex spirals however, that appears to not be the case.

I do remember when it was first thought our galaxy was more of a bar galaxy and remember thinking, " I like spirals better"! Well, with the latest measurements of massive stars our galaxy's missing (unknown) arms are more numerous after all ...I feel better !

reply to post by 727Sky


S+F!

Interesting News.

Sadly, I now expect a flood of New Age videos and pictures depicting Swastika symbology, terms like "vibrational frequency", "higher density", talk of pineal glands, and other such.

AliceBleachWhite
reply to post by 727Sky

 

S+F!

Interesting News.

Sadly, I now expect a flood of New Age videos and pictures depicting Swastika symbology, terms like "vibrational frequency", "higher density", talk of pineal glands, and other such.

edit on 1/2/2014 by AliceBleachWhite because: (no reason given)

Hahahahaha I enjoy the way your mind works ! Thanks for the laugh and reply....

It's nice to get a better understanding of our universe and the actual shape of it. However, I would much rather have a starship like Voyager in Star Trek and go exploring but I guess I'll just have to be happy with this new finding.

AliceBleachWhite
reply to post by 727Sky

 

S+F!

Interesting News.

Sadly, I now expect a flood of New Age videos and pictures depicting Swastika symbology, terms like "vibrational frequency", "higher density", talk of pineal glands, and other such.

edit on 1/2/2014 by AliceBleachWhite because: (no reason given)

That was my exact initial thought as well.

Brace yourselves!

Awesome article though, thanks! S&F!

OH well how interesting! Have a look at this thread and check the third image!

reply to post by 727Sky


Pics or it didn't happen (from the OP source):

Aleister
reply to post by 727Sky

 

Pics or it didn't happen (from the OP source):

Thank you for posting the Picture ! I really need to learn how to do that... Lazy I suppose; maybe one day I will get motivated and learn how....

Andromeda is a much bigger galaxy than the Milky Way and is suppose to collide with us some day in the far far future. If it does then I suppose we will end up belonging to a new galaxy called (?) Andromilkywayreminents; Amwr ? Either way when everything settles down it will end up being something all together different and a sight to behold.

No doubt this will be argued over extensively. That being said it just goes to show we will never be done learning about the universe in which we reside.

Personally I can't wait for the experiments to conclude that will be attempting to take a picture of the event horizon of the theorized black hole at the center of our galaxy!

It seems that more spiral arms do not prevent a bar existing as well.

Cool find !