Talk for a while before going to bed, there is a world in your dreams. Hello listeners. The brilliant starry sky and the vast Milky Way always bring people unlimited reverie. But what the Milky Way looks like is an unsolved mystery. Not long ago, after 17 years of scientific research, a team of Chinese and foreign scientists drew the most accurate map of the galaxy structure to date, which solved this problem. Tonight, we're going to talk about that.
According to the latest research results published in the journal Scientific American, an international team led by astronomers from China and the United States and Germany used the "very long baseline interferometry" to accurately measure nearly 200 massive star-forming regions located on the silver disk, drawing a map of the structure of the Milky Way with a scale of about 100,000 light-years, clearly showing that the Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy with 4 spiral arms. When the Milky Way is presented to the world in a precise structural diagram, scientific progress not only unveils the mystery of the galaxy we live in, but also expands the boundaries of human cognition.
As early as 1785, the famous British astronomer Herschel first proposed that the Milky Way was a flat system composed of hundreds of millions of stars through the method of stellar counting. But due to the distance and difficulty of observation, the internal structure of this flat star system has not been able to figure out. Until the beginning of the 21st century, astronomers in the United States, Germany and China led the establishment of the "Galactic Rod and Spiral Arm Structure Treasure Survey" major scientific program participated by 22 astronomers from 8 countries. Through more than a decade of observation and a large amount of data processing, the structure of the Milky Way's spiral arm, the position of the solar system, and the speed at which the solar system rotates around the center of the Milky Way were finally obtained. This major achievement provides an important observational basis for studying the formation of the Milky Way and even galaxies.
Map of the Structure of the Milky Way: Using multiple radio telescopes, astronomers have made thousands of hours of observations of the Milky Way, measuring the distances between some celestial structures. The image below is the best aerial view of the structure of the Milky Way ever. The data shows the four main spiral arm structures that surround the center of the Milky Way. Our sun (which astronomers see as the center of the four-quadrant mapping coordinates) orbits the Milky Way, around a circle that takes about 212 million years. Near the sun's orbit, there is a smaller spiral arm (blue). In the future, studies using radio telescopes on the southern hemisphere may reveal most of the other structures in the fourth quadrant that are not currently directly observed. | Drafted by Elena Hartley
In fact, scientists have drawn the most accurate map of the structure of the Milky Way to date, which is not only a major breakthrough in astronomical research, but also a major breakthrough in human understanding of the universe. From the Chinese ancestors looking up and looking down and proposing the "heavenly round place theory", to the ancient Greek mathematician Pythagoras proposing the concept that the earth is a sphere, from the "heliocentric theory" proposed by Copernicus in the 15th century to bring about ideological changes, to modern astrophysical research breaking through the solar system and reaching the more distant depths of the universe, human exploration of the universe has never stopped. In this process, human beings continue to break through the existing knowledge bottlenecks, improve the ability to transform and use nature, and reshape the relationship between humans and the universe. Because of this, the drawing of the structure of the Milky Way is regarded by many people as "a key step for human beings to enter the huge galaxy in which we live after understanding the earth and the solar system."
The achievement of these advances, based on the efforts of generations, is a long and arduous process. The advancement of "equipment" largely determines the development and achievements of astronomy. Take the "very long baseline interferometry" technology used by Chinese and foreign scientists this time, this radio astronomy measurement method requires the simultaneous observation of a celestial body with multiple radio telescopes, thus simulating a giant telescope with a size equivalent to the maximum distance between telescopes. For example, last year's "first black hole photo" attracted widespread attention, from Spain to South America, from Hawaii to Antarctica, it is more than 200 scientists around the world who cooperate to unite the radio telescopes of 8 observatories to achieve the observation of black holes. It can be said that every step of our exploration of the universe epitomizes the wisdom of mankind and the unity of mankind.
Whether it is the admiration of poets or the imagination of science fiction writers, China has not lacked people who look up at the stars since ancient times. In recent years, China has achieved fruitful results in astronomical observation and space exploration, and has also made new contributions to the development of world astronomy. It is believed that with the continuous improvement of China's comprehensive national strength and scientific and technological strength, such achievements will continue to emerge, and scientists from all over the world will jointly explore the vast sky.
This is exactly:
The Galaxy travels through the night, seeking new highs up and down.
The vast sky is endless, and unity and cooperation can be heard.
(Text | Guicong Road)