disk component

The Milky Way Demystified

/ Emma / 7 Comments

Alright, people…time to finish off our exploration of the Milky Way Galaxy, our home in the cosmos!

For the past nine weeks, we’ve covered everything from how our galaxy was “discovered” to how it may have formed. But there’s so much more to explore–and, starting next week, we’ll begin covering the vast universe of galaxies beyond our own!

But before we do that…I want to wrap up our discussion of our own galaxy with an overview to tie the last nine posts together.

(By the way, has anyone noticed I actually managed to chug out a post a week for the entire Milky Way “module”? I’m a bit impressed with myself for that!)

Anyway…on to the Milky Way!

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How Did the Milky Way Form?

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Over the course of my last eight posts, we’ve covered just about everything there is to cover about our home galaxy–or, well, at least the basics.

We’ve explored how astronomers first discovered what that incredible, milky stream of dust across the night sky actually is. We’ve followed astronomers like the Herschels and Harlow Shapley as they tried to measure the size of our galaxy.

We’ve covered its structure–a thin disk of spiral arms, surrounded by an enormous, diffuse halo–and how truly massive this great wheel is.

We then explored those spiral arms, where all the youngest stars are–and where stars form in the first place. And we explored the chaotic nucleus at the very center of the galaxy.

Most recently, we delved into the composition of the Milky Way–that is, how much heavy elements its stars contain. We discovered that stellar compositions hint at how old certain parts of the galaxy are.

But there’s one question we haven’t answered yet, and it’s quite possibly the most important one of all.

How did the Milky Way actually become what it is today?

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The Composition of the Milky Way

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This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is andromeda-galaxy-milky-way.jpg

What is our home galaxy made up of?

In the broadest sense, it’s made up of stars, clouds of dust and gas, and the mysterious dark matter.

We could also get a little more detailed. We could say that it is a great wheel of stars, made up of a thin disk component, a central bulge, and a broader spherical halo that surrounds the disk.

We could even build on that, and say that the thin disk is where all the youngest stars are found. We could say that within the thin disk are spiral arms, where the star formation actually happens. We could say that the oldest stars are found in the central bulge and the halo, where there is very little dust and gas to make new stars.

But…what about its chemical composition? If we could explore our galaxy and bring home test tubes of “star stuff,” what would we find? And what can that tell us about our galaxy’s history?

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Exploring the Milky Way’s Spiral Arms

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The Milky Way–our home galaxy–is a spiral galaxy, a classification I often describe as pinwheel-shaped.

The main difference between a spiral galaxy’s shape and a pinwheel’s shape is that spiral galaxies, like the Milky Way, only have two main arms. For the Milky Way, those are the Scutum-Centaurus arm and the Perseus arm. If you study the image above, you’ll notice that all the other arms are a bit wispier, and most branch off from the main arms.

There’s just one problem, though…

How do we even know that this image is an accurate depiction of our galaxy? How do we know that the Milky Way has spiral arms?

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Structure of the Milky Way

/ Emma / 2 Comments

In the vast expanse of the cosmos, the Milky Way Galaxy is our home.

You’ve no doubt seen images of the Milky Way and similar galaxies elsewhere online. It’s a large, spiral galaxy, one of the most spectacular galactic shapes. That spiral shape is fairly iconic–and for years, that’s as far as I thought galaxy classification went.

Turns out, galaxies are way more diverse than just the main three classifications I knew about (spirals, ellipticals, and irregulars). The Milky Way is fully classified as an SBbc: a barred spiral galaxy with a medium-sized nucleus.

Spirals are also described as “grand design” (two distinct spiral arms) or “flocculent” (a sort of fluffy appearance); the Milky Way is somewhere in the middle.

But even those classifications and descriptions don’t fully describe our galaxy.

So what exactly is the structure of the galaxy we call home?

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