Chemical Cartography Reveals the Milky Way’s Spiral Arms

July 14, 2023 • by Emily Howard

The method overcomes the challenges of dust that block the view of some of the Milky Way's stars.

A spiral galaxy floats in the black background of space with red and blue dots sprinkled over one section

Hawkins’ model superimposed over a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory illustration of the Milky Way. Red and blue spots indicate objects with a high or low metallicity, respectively. High metallicity (red) corresponds to the presence of young stars, which are more abundant in spiral arms. Credit: K. Hawkins (UT Austin), NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC/Caltech).


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