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200 papers

The details of the spiral structure of the Milky Way are still debated due to large uncertainties in the distance estimates obtained through the most common tracers. X-ray dust scattering rings produced by short extragalactic X-ray…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2026-04-28 B. Vaia , I. Fornasiero , A. Tiengo , A. Bracco , V. Jelić , Ž. Bošnjak , F. Pintore , P. Esposito

An increasing number of hundred-parsec scale, high line-mass filaments have been detected in the Galaxy. Their evolutionary path, including fragmentation towards star formation, is virtually unknown. We characterize the fragmentation within…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2018-08-22 Michael Mattern , Jouni Kainulainen , Miaomiao Zhang , Henrik Beuther

The estimated total number of Milky Way globulars is 160+-20. The question of whether there are any more undiscovered globular clusters in the Milky Way is particularly relevant with advances in near and mid-IR instrumentation. This…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-13 R. Kurtev , V. D. Ivanov , J. Borissova , S. Ortolani

The nuclear stellar disc (NSD) is a dense stellar structure at the centre of our Galaxy. Given its proximity, it constitutes a unique laboratory to understand other galactic nuclei. Nevertheless, the high crowding and extinction hamper its…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2022-12-20 Francisco Nogueras-Lara

An up-to-date overview of the recent history is given, aiming to present a helpful working guide to the literature and at the same time introduce key systems and observational results, starting from the Sun and going towards the Galactic…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2017-11-28 Jacques P Vallee

In spite of much work, the overall spiral structure morphology of the Milky Way remains somewhat uncertain. In the last two decades, accurate distance measurements have provided us with an opportunity to solve this issue. Using the precise…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2023-04-24 Y. Xu , C. J. Hao , D. J. Liu , Z. H. Lin , S. B. Bian , L. G. Hou , J. J. Li , Y. J. Li

Determining the properties of the warm ionized medium (WIM) at the leading edge of spiral arms is important for understanding its dynamics and cloud formation. The inner edge of the Scutum arm tangency is a unique location in which to…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2017-11-29 W. D. Langer , T. Velusamy , P. F. Goldsmith , J. L. Pineda , E. T. Chambers , G. Sandell , C. Risacher , K. Jacobs

A set of diffuse interstellar clouds in the inner Galaxy within a few hundred pc of the Galactic plane has been observed at an angular resolution of ~1 arcmin combining data from the NRAO Green Bank Telescope and the Very Large Array. At…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-06-15 Yurii Pidopryhora , Felix J. Lockman , John M. Dickey , Michael P. Rupen

We compile and analyze ~200 trigonometric parallaxes and proper motions of molecular masers associated with very young high-mass stars. These measurements strongly suggest that the Milky Way is a four-arm spiral. Fitting log-periodic…

The morphology of the Milky Way is still a matter of debate. In order to shed light on uncertainties surrounding the structure of the Galaxy, in this paper, we study the imprint of spiral arms on the distribution and properties of its…

The spiral structure of the Milky Way is not yet well determined. The keys to understanding this structure are to increase the number of reliable spiral tracers and to determine their distances as accurately as possible. HII regions, giant…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2014-10-15 L. G. Hou , J. L. Han

Observations of HI published in 1957 by Westerhout and Schmidt were presented as showing a global face-on view of spiral structure in the Milky Way. Since then many studies have attempted to improve on the early map, perhaps presupposing…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-11-04 Dana S. Balser , W. B. Burton

This Letter presents a study of the geometry and motion of the Galactic disk using open clusters in the Gaia era. The findings suggest that the inclination of the Galactic disk increases gradually from the inner to the outer disk, with a…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2023-08-31 Zhihong He

The Galactic plane has been mapped from l=34.75d to 45.25d and b=-5.25d to 5.25d in the CO (J=1-0) emission with the 13.7 m telescope of the Purple Mountain Observatory. The unbiased survey covers a large area of 100 square degrees sampled…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2016-09-07 Yang Su , Yan Sun , Chong Li , Shaobo Zhang , Xin Zhou , Min Fang , Ji Yang , Xuepeng Chen

Within the central 10pc of our Galaxy lies a dense nuclear star cluster (NSC), and similar NSCs are found in most nearby galaxies. Studying the structure and kinematics of NSCs reveals the history of mass accretion of galaxy nuclei. Because…

While it is incontrovertible that the inner Galaxy contains a bar, its structure near the Galactic plane has remained uncertain, where extinction from intervening dust is greatest. We investigate here the Galactic bar outside the bulge, the…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-06-17 Christopher Wegg , Ortwin Gerhard , Matthieu Portail

We have identified a new structure in the Milky Way: a leading component of the Smith high velocity cloud that is now crossing the Galactic plane near longitude 25 degrees. Using new 21cm HI data from the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) we…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2023-02-01 Felix J. Lockman , Robert A. Benjamin , Nicolas Pichette , Christopher Thibodeau

The position of the Sun inside the Milky Way's disc hampers the study of the spiral arm structure. We aim to analyse the spiral arms along the line-of-sight towards the Galactic centre (GC) to determine their distance, extinction, and…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2021-09-08 Francisco Nogueras-Lara , Rainer Schödel , Nadine Neumayer

In this work we demonstrate that the Perseus Arm is not a continuous structure of molecular gas in the second quadrant. We first show that the observed, distanced-resolved velocity structure of the Galaxy in the outer disk is capable of…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2022-02-16 J. E. G. Peek , Kirill Tchernyshyov , Marc-Antoine Miville-Deschenes