The Bar at the Center of the Galaxy

NASA scientists using information gleaned from the Spitzer space telescope have determined that we live in a barred galaxy;

"It is a major component of our galaxy and has basically remained
hidden until now," says team member Ed Churchwell, an astronomer at the
University of Wisconsin in Madison, US. "The fact that it’s large means
it’s going to have a major effect on the dynamics of the inner part of
our galaxy."

NewScientist.com, the source of the article, also recently reported that the Milky Way has been officially granted an extra arm;

"Astronomers are shocked that the feature has been overlooked until now. ‘I was absolutely flabbergasted, it was quite clearly seen in some of
the previous surveys but it was never pointed out or given a name,’
says Tom Dame at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in
Cambridge, Massachusetts."

The exact nature of our home galaxy has in some ways been difficult to determine for the same reason that you can’t see your own face (without a mirror); we are just too close to see the big picture. Our view is also obscured by lots of dust, debris and interstellar gasses, so often scientists are left to subtle interpretations of indirect or sparse data in order to construct useful theories.

Apparently we now have enough data to solidly suggest that there is a bar at the center of the galaxy, even if we can’t be sure whether there is a restaurant at the end of the universe.

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