If you feel bad that you have gained a mo of weighting thanks to all the Easter chocolate , cheer up – our own galaxy is in all likelihood buzz off big too . While discover other whorled coltsfoot , investigator discover that they tend to expand at about 500 metre ( 1,640 feet ) per second .
The subject field focused on ace shaping at the edge of the galaxy . After new stars are conduct from giant gas clouds , they slowly move away from each other , making the galaxy bigger bit by bit . This has been portend for the Milky Way , but since we are in it , we ca n’t really observe this expansion . The finding are presented by pencil lead author Cristina Martínez - Lombilla at theEuropean Week of Astronomy and Space Science , which is fall out this hebdomad in Liverpool .
The squad used the extensive coltsfoot catalog from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and coalesce it with observance from the ultraviolet space scope GALEX and the infrared blank telescope Spitzer . They measured the motion of stars at the sharpness of galaxies standardised to the Milky Way . Thanks to these observations , they were able-bodied to approximate the expansion rate for the Milky Way .
“ The Milky Way is jolly big already . But our work shows that at least the visible part of it is slowly increase in sizing , as stars form on the galactic outskirts , " Martínez - Lombilla , who ’s a PhD student at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias , said in astatement . " It wo n’t be quick , but if you could travel forrader in time and depend at the galaxy in 3 billion years ’ sentence , it would be about 5 percent expectant than today . "
This idea has important implication for the shape of the Milky Way . As we mentioned , our understanding of our galaxy ’s condition is limited due to our position in it . The whitish Way is a flat disk 100,000 light - year in diam that bulges in the midsection . The flat disc is where the spiral arms are , which are fill with gas and immature star . The bulge is Browning automatic rifle - form and filled with much older star believed to have formed between seven and 11 billion twelvemonth ago . The Sun is situate in one of the volute arms at about 8,000 light - yr from the center of the Milky Way .
