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Related papers: What Does the Milky Way Look Like?

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Like many galaxies of its size, the Milky Way is a disk with prominent spiral arms rooted in a central bar, although our knowledge of its structure and origin is incomplete. Traditional attempts to understand the Galaxy's morphology assume…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2011-09-15 Chris W. Purcell , James S. Bullock , Erik Tollerud , Miguel Rocha , Sukanya Chakrabarti

This study extends to the structure of the Galaxy. Our main goal is to focus on the first spiral arm beyond the Perseus arm, often called the Cygnus arm or the Outer Norma arm, by appraising the distributions of the masers near the Cygnus…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2020-04-15 Jacques P Vallée

The study of the Milky Way structure is vital importance for a better understanding of the universe. This study digs deeper into the structure of Milky Way Galaxys with emphasis to its spiral arms. Multiple data sources were sought…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2019-02-25 Jawaher Alsobaie

Spiral arms are the defining features of broad morphological classes of disc galaxies, but their nature and influence on galaxy evolution is still under debate. A key diagnostic for their nature is the spiral arm pattern speed: the radial…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2025-12-22 Robert J. J. Grand , Martin Roth

The Milky Way spiral arms are well established from star counts as well as from the locus of molecular clouds and other young objects, however, they have only recently started to be observed from a kinematics point of view. Using the…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2022-03-15 Luis Martinez-Medina , Angeles Pérez-Villegas , Antonio Peimbert

It has been thought for many years that the Milky Way is an overly large spiral galaxy. Using Cephied distances to 17 spiral galaxies we calculate the true linear diameters of those galaxies. These diameters are then compared to that of the…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-05-23 S. P. Goodwin , J. Gribbin , M. A. Hendry

We investigate the morphology and kinematics of the Galactic spiral structure based on a new sample of O- and early B-type stars. We select 6,858 highly confident OB star candidates from the combined data of the VST Photometric H$\alpha$…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2019-06-11 Chen Bingqiu , Huang Yang , Hou Ligang , Tian Hao , Li Guangxing , Yuan Haibo , Wang Haifeng , Wang Chun , Tian Zhijia , Liu Xiaowei

We created a three-dimensional distribution map of molecular gas throughout the Milky Way Galaxy using the latest $^{12}$CO($J=$1--0) survey data cube and rotation curve based on the kinematic distance. The radial distribution of the…

Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-24 Hiroyuki Nakanishi , Yoshiaki Sofue

Context: Because of our viewing point within the Galactic disc, it is extremely difficult to observe the spiral structure of the Milky Way. Aims: To clarify the structure of the Galaxy by re-examination of gas distributions and data from…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-06-04 Charles Francis , Erik Anderson

The generation of spiral arms and the mechanisms controlling their properties within a realistic cosmological framework - the complete understanding is still beyond our grasp. Using a statistically significant sample of Milky Way- and…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-10-31 Soumavo Ghosh , Elena D'Onghia

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…

We investigate the possibility of describing the spiral pattern of the Milky Way in terms of a model of superposition 2- and 4-armed wave harmonics (the simplest description, besides pure modes). Two complementary methods are used: a study…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-10-31 J. R. D. Lepine , Yu. N. Mishurov , S. Yu. Dedikov

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

Using observational data on the kinematical properties and density distributions of the subsystems of the Milky Way galaxy, we construct a set of multi-component equilibrium models of its disk. The dynamics of the disk is studied…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2019-12-17 V. I. Korchagin , S. S. Khrapov , A. V. Khoperskov

In this contribution I shall focus on the structure of the Galactic thin disk. The evolution of the thin disk and its chemical properties have been discussed in detail by T. Bensby's contribution in conjunction with the properties of the…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-06-16 Giovanni Carraro

Star clusters provide unique advantages for investigating Galactic spiral arms, particularly due to their precise ages, positions, and kinematic properties, which are further enhanced by ongoing updates from the astrometric data. In this…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-01-27 Xiaochen Liu , Zhihong He , Yangping Luo , Kun Wang

We explore the three-dimensional structure of a sample of $\sim$ 16000 young giant stars in the Galactic disc out to $\sim$8 kpc in heliocentric distance. This population traces a thin disc with a local vertical scale height of $h_{Z \odot}…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2026-05-14 E. Poggio , R. Drimmel , S. Khanna , R. Andrae , M. G. Lattanzi

The lack of arm tracers, especially the remote tracers, is one of the most difficult problems preventing us from studying the structure of the Milky Way. Fortunately, with its high-sensitivity CO survey, the Milky Way Imaging Scroll…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2016-05-25 Xinyu Du , Ye Xu , Ji Yang , Yan Sun , Facheng Li , Shaobo Zhang , Xin Zhou

The spiral structure of our Milky Way has not yet been well outlined. HII regions, giant molecular clouds (GMCs) and 6.7-GHz methanol masers are primary tracers for spiral arms. We collect and update the database of these tracers which has…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2013-05-01 L. G. Hou , J. L. Han

While the galactic density wave theory is over 50 years old and well known in science, whether it fits our own Milky Way disk has been difficult to say. Here we show a substructure inside the spiral arms. This substructure is reversing with…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2016-04-19 Jacques P Vallee