Far 3 kpc Arm

Minor arm near the center of the Milky Way Galaxy
Artist's conception of the spiral structure of the Milky Way with two major stellar arms and a central bar. In this image the Far 3 kpc Arm is located near the center, above and to the left of the bulge.

The Far 3 kpc Arm was discovered in 2008 by astronomer Tom Dame while preparing a talk on the galaxy's spiral arms for a meeting of the 212th American Astronomical Society. It is one of the spiral arms of the Milky Way and it is located in the first galactic quadrant at a distance of 3 kiloparsecs (9,800 light-years) from the Galactic Center. Along with the Near 3 kpc Arm, the existence of which has been known since the mid-1950s, the counterpart inner arms establish the symmetry of the Milky Way.[1]

Tom Dame and collaborator Patrick Thaddeus analyzed data obtained using a 1.2-meter-diameter millimeter-wave telescope located at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile. They detected the presence of the spiral arm in a CO survey and later confirmed their discovery using 21-centimeter radio measurements of atomic hydrogen collected by colleagues in Australia.[2][3]

See also

  • Galactic disc

References

  1. ^ Nemiroff, R.; Bonnell, J., eds. (11 July 2008). "The Far 3kpc Arm". Astronomy Picture of the Day. NASA.
  2. ^ Milky Way's Inner Beauty Revealed, phys.org, June 3, 2008
  3. ^ A New Spiral Arm of the Galaxy: The Far 3-Kpc Arm, T. M. Dame, P. Thaddeus, ApJ Letters, 2008
  • v
  • t
  • e
Milky Way
Location
Milky Way  Milky Way subgroup  Local Group Local Sheet Virgo Supercluster Laniakea Supercluster  Local Hole  Observable universe  Universe
Each arrow () may be read as "within" or "part of".
The Milky Way Galaxy
The Milky Way Galaxy
Structure
Galactic Center
Disk
Halo
Satellite
galaxies
Magellanic Clouds
Dwarfs
Related
  • Astronomy portal
  • Category
Portals:
  • icon Stars
  •  Spaceflight
  •  Outer space
  •  Solar System