PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

First 'bone' of the Milky Way identified

First 'bone' of the Milky Way identified
2013-01-09
(Press-News.org) Our Milky Way is a spiral galaxy - a pinwheel-shaped collection of stars, gas and dust. It has a central bar and two major spiral arms that wrap around its disk. Since we view the Milky Way from the inside, its exact structure is difficult to determine.

Astronomers have identified a new structure in the Milky Way: a long tendril of dust and gas that they are calling a "bone."

"This is the first time we've seen such a delicate piece of the galactic skeleton," says lead author Alyssa Goodman of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). Goodman presented the discovery today in a press conference at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Long Beach, Calif.

Other spiral galaxies also display internal bones or endoskeletons. Observations, especially at infrared wavelengths of light, have found long skinny features jutting between galaxies' spiral arms. These relatively straight structures are much less massive than the curving spiral arms.

Computer simulations of galaxy formation show webs of filaments within spiral disks. It is very likely that the newly discovered Milky Way feature is one of these "bone-like" filaments.

Goodman and her colleagues spotted the galactic bone while studying a dust cloud nicknamed "Nessie." The central part of the "Nessie" bone was discovered in Spitzer Space Telescope data in 2010 by James Jackson (Boston University), who named it after the Loch Ness Monster. Goodman's team noticed that Nessie appears at least twice, and possibly as much as eight times, longer than Jackson's original claim.

Radio emissions from molecular gas show that the feature is not a chance projection of material on the sky, but instead a real feature. Not only is "Nessie" in the galactic plane, but also it extends much longer than anyone anticipated. This slender bone of the Milky Way is more than 300 light-years long but only 1 or 2 light-years wide. It contains about 100,000 suns' worth of material, and now looks more like a cosmic snake.

"This bone is much more like a fibula - the long skinny bone in your leg - than it is like the tibia, or big thick leg bone," explains Goodman.

"It's possible that the 'Nessie' bone lies within a spiral arm, or that it is part of a web connecting bolder spiral features. Our hope is that we and other astronomers will find more of these features, and use them to map the skeleton of the Milky Way in 3-D," she adds.



INFORMATION:


[Attachments] See images for this press release:
First 'bone' of the Milky Way identified

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Mayo Clinic: 2-drug combination may slow deadly thyroid cancer

2013-01-09
ROCHESTER, Minn. -- A combination of the drugs pazopanib and paclitaxel shows promise in slowing anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC), according to a Mayo Clinic-led study published in the journal Science Translational Medicine. The two drugs together resulted in greater anti-cancer activity in ATC than either drug alone, says lead researcher Keith Bible, M.D., Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic oncologist. Anaplastic thyroid cancer is a rare but devastating form of thyroid cancer that typically strikes men and women in their 60s and 70s. It is very aggressive, with a median survival ...

Cluster mission indicates turbulent eddies may warm the solar wind

Cluster mission indicates turbulent eddies may warm the solar wind
2013-01-09
The sun ejects a continuous flow of electrically charged particles and magnetic fields in the form of the solar wind -- and this wind is hotter than it should be. A new study of data obtained by European Space Agency's Cluster spacecraft may help explain the mystery. The solar wind is made of an electrically-charged gas called plasma. One theory about the wind's puzzling high temperatures is that irregularities in the flow of charged particles and magnetic fields in the plasma create turbulence, which, in turn, dissipates and adds heat to its surroundings. Using two separate ...

NASA sees Tropical Cyclone Narelle form in Southern Indian Ocean

NASA sees Tropical Cyclone Narelle form in Southern Indian Ocean
2013-01-09
The eighth tropical cyclone to form during the Southern Indian Ocean cyclone season formed from low pressure System 98S and became Tropical Cyclone Narelle. NASA's TRMM satellite passed over System 98S and saw the hallmark "hot towers" that indicated the storm would soon likely intensify into Tropical Storm Narelle. NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite passed over System 98S on Jan. 7 at 0901 UTC (4:01 a.m. EST/U.S.) hours before it intensified into Tropical Storm Narelle. TRMM's Precipitation Radar instrument captured estimates of rainfall occurring ...

NASA watches a slow-moving Tropical Depression Sonamu

NASA watches a slow-moving Tropical Depression Sonamu
2013-01-09
Tropical Depression Sonamu has been consistently slow moving over the last couple of days, and that has not changed. NASA's Aqua satellite captured an infrared image of the stubborn storm lingering in the South China Sea, and it still contained some strong thunderstorms. When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Depression Sonamu on Jan. 8 at 0641 UTC (1:41 a.m. EST/U.S.), the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument aboard took an infrared look at the storm. AIRS data showed that Sonamu still contained some very cold cloud top temperatures of -63F (-52C) ...

Intensive training for aphasia: Even older patients can improve

2013-01-09
Older adults who have suffered from aphasia for a long time can nevertheless improve their language function and maintain these improvements in the long term, according to a study by Dr. Ana Inés Ansaldo, PhD, a researcher at the Research Centre of the Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal (University Geriatrics Institute of Montreal) and a professor in the School of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology at the Faculty of Medicine of Université de Montréal. The study was published in Brain and Language. After six weeks of intensive and specific language therapy, ...

Whales' foraging strategies revealed by new technology

2013-01-09
Marine biologists are beginning to understand the varied diving and foraging strategies of filter-feeding whales by analyzing data from multisensor tags attached to the animals with suction cups. Such tags, in combination with other techniques such as echolocation, are providing a wealth of fine detail about how the world's largest creatures find and trap their prey. Recent studies on the behavior of baleen whales—which filter small fish or invertebrate animals from seawater—are described in the February issue of BioScience. Jeremy A. Goldbogen of the Cascadia Research ...

Disappearing bacterium may protect against stroke

2013-01-09
New York (January 9, 2013) -- A new study by NYU School of Medicine researchers reveals that an especially virulent strain of the gut bacterium Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) isn't implicated in the overall death rate of the U.S. population, and may even protect against stroke and some cancers. The findings, based a nationwide health survey of nearly 10,000 individuals over a period of some 12 years, are published online, January 9, in the journal Gut. Those individuals carrying the most virulent strain of H. pylori, the study found, had a 55 percent reduced risk of ...

New Law Legalizes Hands-Free Communication While Driving

2013-01-09
New law legalizes hands-free communication while driving It is no secret that Los Angeles residents spend a great deal of time on the highways. They may be happy to hear that a new law creates an exception to the ban on text-based communication. Under the exception, drivers may engage in hands-free texting and email if they are using voice-operated technology. Details of the new law California is the second state to legalize hands-free texting using voice-operated technology. Idaho was the first. Authors of the law, which takes effect on the first of January, say ...

Marijuana is Legal in Washington, But Driving Under its Influence is Not

2013-01-09
Marijuana is legal in Washington, but driving under its influence is not In November 2012, Washington became one of only two states in the nation -- the other state is Colorado -- to legalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use. As of 12:01 a.m. on December 6, 2012, Washington ballot Initiative 502 (I-502) became law, and now anyone over 21 years old can legally possess up to one ounce of marijuana. How non-medicinal users of marijuana can legally obtain the substance, however, is still a gray area. While pro-legalization individuals celebrated ...

Maryland Child Custody Basics

2013-01-09
Maryland child custody basics Child custody decisions as a result of divorce can be complicated. Divorcing parents have leeway to make mutual decisions about child custody, but if they cannot agree, the court will step in to make the decision for them. Maryland child custody law There are two types of custody: physical and legal. Physical custody refers to the home where the child lives and making routine decisions about the child's day-to-day life. Legal custody is the right to make global, long-term decisions on behalf of the child, such as religious affiliation, ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Scientists uncover immune cells that help prostate cancer resist treatment — and reveal a way to stop them

Cellulose instead of crude oil: team with participation of Graz University of Technology develops sustainable foams

New fossils from Earth’s most famous extinction show climate tipping point was crossed

AI predicts patients likely to die of sudden cardiac arrest

Double detonation: New image shows remains of star destroyed by pair of explosions

Gene therapy restored hearing in deaf patients

Survey finds Trump losing favor, Newsom gaining

Religion, politics and war drive urban wildlife evolution

Peeking inside AI brains: Machines learn like us

A map for single-atom catalysts

What about tritiated water release from Fukushima? Ocean model simulations provide an objective scientific knowledge on the long-term tritium distribution

Growing crisis of communicable disease in Canada in tandem with US cuts

Women get better at managing their anger as they age

Illegal shark product trade evident in Australia and New Zealand

New search tool brings 21% better accuracy for robotics developers

New model extracts sentence-level proof to verify events, boosting fact-checking accuracy for journalists, legal teams, and policymakers

Efficient carbon integration of CO₂ in propane aromatization over acidic zeolites

FPGA-accelerated AI for demultiplexing multimode fiber towards next-generation communications

Vitamin D3 nanoemulsion significantly improves core symptoms in children with autism: A clinical trial

Microfluidic point-of-care device accurately measures bilirubin in blood serum: A pilot study

Amygdalin shows strong binding and stabilizing effects on HER2 receptor: A computational study for breast cancer therapy

Bond behavior of FRP bars in concrete under reversed cyclic loading: an experimental study

Milky Way-like galaxy M83 consumes high-speed clouds

Study: What we learned from record-breaking 2021 heat wave and what we can expect in the future

Transforming treatment outcomes for people with OCD

Damage from smoke and respiratory viruses mitigated in mice via a common signaling pathway

New software tool could help better understand childhood cancer

Healthy lifestyle linked to lower diverticulitis risk, irrespective of genetic susceptibility

Women 65+ still at heightened risk of cervical cancer caused by HPV

‘Inflammatory’ diet during pregnancy may raise child’s diabetes type 1 risk

[Press-News.org] First 'bone' of the Milky Way identified