Milky Way Neighborhood Gets More Respect

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Earth's Milky Way Neighborhood Gets More Respect

Our Solar System's Milky Way neighborhood just went upscale. We reside between two major spiral arms of our home galaxy, in a structure called the Local Arm. New research using the ultra-sharp radio vision of the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) indicates that the Local Arm, previously thought to be only a small spur, instead is much more like the adjacent major arms, and is likely a significant branch of one of them.

"Our new evidence suggests that the Local Arm should appear as a prominent feature of the Milky Way," said Alberto Sanna, of the Max-Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy. Sanna and his colleagues presented their findings to the American Astronomical Society's meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana.

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Edited December 14, 2013 by Waspie_Dwarf
corrected tags