"We are here" on image of the Milky Way galaxy which is 50% larger than we thought

[Delta4Embassy]

The corrugated galaxy Milky Way may be much larger than previously estimated

"The Milky Way galaxy is at least 50 percent larger than is commonly estimated, according to new findings that reveal that the galactic disk is contoured into several concentric ripples. The research, conducted by an international team led by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Professor Heidi Jo Newberg, revisits astronomical data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey which, in 2002, established the presence of a bulging ring of stars beyond the known plane of the Milky Way.

"In essence, what we found is that the disk of the Milky Way isn't just a disk of stars in a flat plane—it's corrugated," said Heidi Newberg, professor of physics, applied physics, and astronomy in the Rensselaer School of Science. "As it radiates outward from the sun, we see at least four ripples in the disk of the Milky Way. While we can only look at part of the galaxy with this data, we assume that this pattern is going to be found throughout the disk."

Importantly, the findings show that the features previously identified as rings are actually part of the galactic disk, extending the known width of the Milky Way from 100,000 light years across to 150,000 light years, said Yan Xu, a scientist at the National Astronomical Observatories of China (which is part of the Chinese Academy of Science in Beijing), former visiting scientist at Rensselaer, and lead author of the paper."

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Reminds me of the Infinite Perspective Vortex from one of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books. A device used for execution by showing the condemned their place in the universe. And thus their complete insignificance.

 

[waltky]

Granny says dat's why it takes dem space aliens so long to get here...

Astronomers Spot 'Most Distant Galaxy'
September 10, 2015 - Astronomers say they may have glimpsed the most distant galaxy ever spotted, something conventional theories about the early universe say should not have been possible.

The galaxy, called EGS8p7, is believed to be 13.2 billion years old, meaning it formed shortly after the Big Bang when the universe was “a soup of charged particles” from which light could not be transmitted. In the early universe, “clouds of neutral hydrogen atoms would have absorbed certain radiation emitted by young, newly forming galaxies,” according to a news release from California Institute of Technology, or Caltech. This would include the spectral signature of hot hydrogen gas, known as the Lyman-alpha line, which is a sign of new star formation.
Scientists believe it was not until around 380,000 years before light was able to transverse the cosmos, and between one half billion and one billion years before the first galaxies “turned on” and reionized neutral gases, but EGS8p7 may change that theory. Yet, despite the theories about light absorption, astronomers were able to use redshift measurements to determine EGS8p7’s distance. Light stretches and becomes redder the further it travels, and redshift measurements are a common way to measure the distance to galaxies.

Galaxy EGS8p7, as seen from the Hubble Space Telescope (wide and top right) and Spitzer Space Telescope (inset, bottom right), taken in infrared.

Adi Zitrin, a NASA Hubble postdoctoral scholar in astronomy at Caltech, says EGS8p7 may cause scientists to “revise the timeline” for galaxy formation in the early universe. "If you look at the galaxies in the early universe, there is a lot of neutral hydrogen that is not transparent to this emission," said Zitrin in a statement. "We expect that most of the radiation from this galaxy would be absorbed by the hydrogen in the intervening space. Yet still, we see Lyman-alpha from this galaxy."
The timeline of reionization is, according to Zitrin, a “major key question” surrounding the early universe, and EGS8p7 may show it did not happen uniformly around the universe. "The galaxy we have observed, EGS8p7, which is unusually luminous, may be powered by a population of unusually hot stars, and it may have special properties that enabled it to create a large bubble of ionized hydrogen much earlier than is possible for more typical galaxies at these times," says Sirio Belli, a Caltech graduate student who worked on the project.

Astronomers Spot 'Most Distant Galaxy'