’Candles’ light up Milky Way’s dark side

A new picture of the far side of our galaxy has come to light following the discovery of stars hidden in a giant hydrogen cloud flaring out from the galactic disk.

The findings, reported in the journal Nature, will help scientists better understand the structure of the Milky Way.

“If a significant number of similar stars could be identified in the outer reaches of the galaxy, they could be used as tracers … to probe the distribution of dark matter,” says study author Dr Patricia Whitelock of the South African Astronomical Observatory.

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> “Previous observations looking on either side of the centre, but away from the central region itself, suggest that the gaseous disk of the Milky Way shows a marked flaring from about 45,000 light years out from the galactic centre. The flaring of the gas disc is observed in some other directions away from the Galactic centre nothing whatsoever was known about the flaring behind the Galactic centre”.

That was original work done on hydrogen emissions by the Parkes Radio Telescope many years ago.

> “Whitelock and colleagues used infrared photometry to peer through the clouds, identifying five Cepheid variable stars.”

Yes, IR can do that.

> “The presence of these relatively young stars so far from the galactic plane is puzzling”

Yes. You expect stars further from the galactic plane to be older.