To see an additional graphic from the study, click on the image above.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. The discovery that hundreds of stars are rapidly moving together in long, looping orbits around the center of our galaxy has been announced by a team of scientists including a Penn State University astronomer and others collaborating in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III). "The stars near the nucleus of the Milky Way appear to form a bar-like structure thousands of light years in size," said Donald Schneider, a distinguished professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State and coauthor of the study. "In this investigation, we were able to accurately measure the motions of a set of stars located in the galaxy's bar and to gain some insight into the dynamics of the central, dense regions of the Milky Way." Schneider is the survey coordinator and scientific publications coordinator for the SDSS-III. The center of our Galaxy is 30,000 light-years away - close by cosmic standards - but we know surprisingly little about it because the galaxy's dusty disk hides the galaxy's center from our view. Although interstellar dust blocks nearly all visible light, longer infrared wavelengths can partially shine through. To detect this infrared light, the SDSS-III team's new Apache Point Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) added a new custom-built high-resolution infrared spectrograph to the 2.5-meter Sloan Foundation Telescope in New Mexico.
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