Width of milky way

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Width of the Milky Way: Insights from Recent Research

Spiral Arm Width in the Milky Way

Measuring Spiral Arm Width Using Multitracer Approach

Recent studies have provided new insights into the width of the Milky Way's spiral arms. One significant approach involves analyzing the separation between different regions within the spiral arms. Specifically, researchers have focused on the distance between star-forming regions, identified by radio masers, and aged star regions, marked by diffuse CO gas. This separation is used as a measure of the spiral arm width. The findings indicate a typical separation of approximately 250 ± 50 parsecs (pc), with an increase of about 25 ± 5 pc per kiloparsec (kpc) as the galactic radius increases . This method supports the density wave theory, which predicts such separations.

The Milky Way Imaging Scroll Painting (MWISP) Project

The Milky Way Imaging Scroll Painting (MWISP) project has also contributed valuable data to our understanding of the Milky Way's structure. This project involves an extensive CO survey of the Galactic plane, covering regions from +25.08° to +49.07° in galactic longitude. The survey uses the 13.7 m telescope of the Purple Mountain Observatory and aims to map molecular clouds (MCs) with high resolution and sensitivity. The data collected allows for detailed investigation of molecular clouds and the structure of spiral arms, providing further context to the measurements of spiral arm width .

Conclusion

The width of the Milky Way's spiral arms has been measured using innovative multitracer approaches, revealing a typical separation of around 250 pc between star-forming and aged star regions. This separation increases with the galactic radius, aligning with predictions from the density wave theory. Additionally, the MWISP project has provided high-quality data that supports these findings and offers a deeper understanding of the Milky Way's structure. These combined efforts enhance our knowledge of the Milky Way's spiral arm width and its variation across the galaxy.

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Most relevant research papers on this topic

A New Multitracer Approach to Defining the Spiral Arm Width in the Milky Way

The spiral arm width in the Milky Way is influenced by the separation between star-forming regions and aged star regions, supporting the density wave theory.

2020·

8citations

·Jacques P Vallée

The Milky Way Imaging Scroll Painting (MWISP): Project Details and Initial Results from the Galactic Longitudes of 25.°8–49.°7

The Milky Way Imaging Scroll Painting project provides high-quality data on molecular clouds in the Milky Way, revealing distant spiral arms, bubble-like dense gas structures, and molecular cloud distributions perpendicular to the Galactic plane.

Highly Cited

2019·

90citations

·Yang Su et al.

Quantifying the (X/peanut)-shaped structure of the Milky Way – new constraints on the bar geometry

The Milky Way's long bar extends beyond the inner bulge and is oriented at the same $37circ$ angle, with an expected radius of 4.2 kpc but possibly as low as 3.2 kpc.

2017·

19citations

·B. Ciambur et al.

Trigonometric Parallaxes of High-mass Star-forming Regions: Our View of the Milky Way

The Milky Way is a four-arm spiral galaxy with extra arm segments and spurs, and our data improves our understanding of its spiral structure and non-circular motions.

Highly Cited

2019·

317citations

·M. Reid et al.

The mass distribution and gravitational potential of the Milky Way

The Milky Way has a total stellar mass of (54.3 5.7) 109 M, a total virial mass of (1.30 0.30) 1012M, and a local dark-matter density of 0.40 0.04 GeV cm-3, with most

Highly Cited

2016·

564citations

·P. McMillan

The Distance to the Perseus Spiral Arm in the Milky Way

The distance to the Perseus spiral arm of the Milky Way has been determined to be 1.95 0.04 kiloparsecs (5.86 1016 km), resolving the discrepancy between different distance-determining techniques.

Highly Cited

2005·

297citations

·Ying Xu et al.

A common mass scale for satellite galaxies of the Milky Way

The Milky Way's satellite galaxies have a common mass of about 107 within their central 300 parsecs, indicating they are the most dark-matter-dominated galaxies known.

Highly Cited

2008·

434citations

·L. Strigari et al.

Names in Estonian Folk Astronomy - from 'Bird's Way' to 'Milky Way'

The Milky Way is a big stellar system – a galaxy, with its core in the Sagittarius Constellation, and the Sun is 8.5 kpc from the core.

2002·

2citations

·A. Kuperjanov

The structure of the Milky Way's bar outside the bulge

The Milky Way contains a central box/peanut bulge that is the vertical extension of a longer, flatter bar, similar to external galaxies and N-body models.

Highly Cited

2015·

221citations

·C. Wegg et al.

The Spiral Structure of the Outer Milky Way in Hydrogen

The Milky Way is a non-axisymmetric multiarmed spiral galaxy with spiral structure traced out to at least 25 kiloparsecs, and overdensities in surface density coincide with reduced gas thickness.

Highly Cited

2006·

125citations

·E. S. Levine et al.

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