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Interesting Milky Way Facts

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Interesting Milky Way Facts

Astronomers are busy charting the spiral structure of our galaxy, the Milky Way, just as early explorers did with the continents of our planet. Scientists discovered that the Milky Way's elegant spiral structure is dominated by just two arms wrapping off the ends of a central bar of stars using infrared images from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Our galaxy was previously thought to have four major arms. The annotated artist's concept depicts the new Milky Way view. The two major arms of the galaxy (Scutum-Centaurus and Perseus) can be seen attached to the ends of a thick central bar, while the two now-defunct minor arms (Norma and Sagittarius) are less distinct and located between the major arms. The visible section of the Milky Way's galactic plane, as seen from Earth, covers an area of the sky that contains 30 constellations. [c] The Galactic Center is located in Sagittarius, the brightest constellation in the Milky Way. The hazy ring of white light appears to pass around the galactic anticenter in Auriga from Sagittarius. The band then circles the sky again, returning to Sagittarius, separating the sky into two roughly equal halves.The galactic plane is 60 degrees inclined to the ecliptic (Earth's orbital plane). It travels as far north as Cassiopeia and as far south as Crux in relation to the celestial equator, illustrating the steep inclination of Earth's equatorial plane and the plane of the ecliptic in relation to the galactic plane. The north galactic pole lies near Comae Berenices and the south galactic pole is near Sculptoris at right ascension 12h 49m, declination +27.4° (B1950). Because of this steep slant, the Milky Way arch may look low or high in the sky depending on the time of night and year.

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