Astronomers Find the Edge of Our Galaxy - Gizmodo

In the quest to find the outer limits of our galaxy, astronomers person discovered implicit 200 stars that signifier the Milky Way’s edge, the astir distant of which is implicit 1 cardinal light-years away—nearly halfway to the Andromeda galaxy.

The 208 stars the researchers identified are known arsenic RR Lyrae stars, which are stars with a brightness that tin alteration arsenic viewed from Earth. These stars are typically aged and brighten and dim astatine regular intervals, which is simply a mechanics that allows scientists to cipher however acold distant they are. By calculating the region to these RR Lyrae stars, the squad recovered that the farthest of the clump was located astir halfway betwixt the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy, 1 of our cosmic next-door neighbors.

“This survey is redefining what constitutes the outer limits of our galaxy,” said Raja GuhaThakurta successful a press release. GuhaThakurta is prof and seat of astronomy and astrophysics astatine the University of California Santa Cruz. “Our postulation and Andromeda are some truthful big, there’s hardly immoderate abstraction betwixt the 2 galaxies.”

The Milky Way postulation consists of a fewer antithetic parts, the superior of which is simply a thin, spiral disk astir 100,000 light-years across. Our location star strategy sits connected 1 of the arms of this disk. An interior and outer halo situation the disk, and these halos incorporate immoderate of the oldest stars successful our galaxy.

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Previous studies person placed the borderline of the outer halo astatine 1 cardinal light-years from the Milky Way’s center, but based connected the caller work, the borderline of this halo should beryllium astir 1.04 cardinal light-years from the galactic center. Yuting Feng, a doctoral pupil astatine the assemblage moving with GuhaThakurta, led the survey and is presenting the findings this week astatine the American Astronomical Society gathering successful Seattle.

“We were capable to usage these adaptable stars arsenic reliable tracers to pin down the distances,” said Yuting Feng, a doctoral pupil astatine the assemblage moving with GuhaThakurta. “Our observations corroborate the theoretical estimates of the size of the halo, truthful that’s an important result.”

Space is immense and lonely—but we tin consciousness a spot cozier knowing that our galactic neighbour is person than we thought.