The Milky Way galaxy may be a different shape than we thought

[BootinUp]

The shape of our galaxy may reveal a history of collisions with other galaxies or even galactic clusters.

New measurements suggest that the Milky Way galaxy may have a different shape than we thought.

Over the past few years, astronomers have increasingly discovered that galaxies seem to come in three main shapes: Elliptical, irregular and spiral. The majority of known galaxies that fit in this last category seem to have two prominent "arms" that branch out and split into lesser arms.

But the traditional portrayal of the Milky Way is that of a galaxy with four major spiral arms extending out from a thick centralized bulge of stars. This makes our spiral galaxy stand out as an extremely rare outlier with an odd shape that must have some very unique properties to grant it four major arms.

That portrayal could be wrong, however. A team of astronomers has published new research that suggests we have been wrong about the shape of the Milky Way for decades, with our galaxy instead having two main arms just like its contemporary spiral galaxies.

Continued https://www.space.com/milky-way-galaxy-different-shape

[keithbvadu2]

1. You know? I've been worried about that.

Stress.

[dweller]

2. I think it's 3 armed

Away with even #’d galaxies … and it’s not Milky, it’s Frostee



✌🏻

[lapfog_1]

3. to get an accurate picture

we either need to map all the stars that we think are in our galaxy (relative to us).. and this picture will be, of necessity, inaccurate because of time dilation ( we really don't know where things are because of the speed of light). The second way would be to send a probe out of the galactic plane, probably a few hundred light years... again, thousands of years (with any current technology) for us to place a probe in the right place and get an image back to earth.

sigh.

With what we think we know now about physics, warp drive is unlikely so traveling around the galaxy is likely never going to happen.

[BootinUp]

5. no. no galaxy hopping but having the JWST is not too bad.

I would love to see a major advancement in quantum gravity or the theory of everything.

[RegulatedCapitalistD]

4. I think we are a virus

And the galaxy is like a blood or other cell on an even bigger being.....

[SCantiGOP]

6. You might want to post that

In the Cannabis section

[RegulatedCapitalistD]

7. Why?

It's as good a theory as any other