barred spiral galaxy tagged posts

WISE allsky map of the sky showing the Milky Way Galaxy. The central circle indicates the centre of the Galaxy and the inset shows an enhanced view of the x-shaped structure. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech; D. Lang/Dunlap Institute

2 astronomers with the help of Twitter have uncovered the strongest evidence yet that an enormous X-shaped structure made of stars lies within the central bulge of the Milky Way Galaxy. Previous computer models, observations of other galaxies, and observations of our own galaxy have suggested that the X-shaped structure existed. But no one had observed it directly; and some astronomers argued that previous research that pointed indirectly to the existence of the X could be explained in other ways.

The Milky Way Galaxy is a barred spiral galaxy: a disk-shaped collectio...