The Milky Way Just Got Upgraded: It's Bigger!

 

A research team led by Beatrice Vaia used data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton to study X-ray light echoes from distant Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) located billions of light-years away. As these blinding flashes of X-ray light traveled toward Earth, they struck the dust clouds in our galaxy's outer arms, bouncing around and creating expanding concentric rings.

By measuring the exact diameter of these rings, the team calculated pinpoint, direct geometric distances to three major arms: the Perseus, the Outer, and the Outer Scutum-Centaurus arms.

The big surprise? Along the line of sight of these bursts, both the Outer and the Outer Scutum-Centaurus arms are actually about 10% further away than our current maps show!

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The Milky Way: Imaged vs Reality from a Dark Site

 

My sketch of the Milky Way in the Sagitarrius Region

The Milky Way Rising with Sagitarrius clearly evident 

Another view of the Milky Way rising with Sagitarrius rather low in the sky. 

I get asked this all the time by those unexperienced with how the Milky Way  really looks at a dark site. We see wonderful images taken with wide field photography of time lapsed and enhanced views of our Milky Way from dark sites. I show this in the video. The images above and video below show more realistically what you can expect. The SQM L reading from this area of the sky that night was 21.72 which I included. In other areas of the sky I was getting 21.88 or so readings where the Milky Way wasn't impacting yet.  Yes, the Milky Way is bright and it can reduce the readings of a SQM or SQM L by .1 to .2 points in my experience. 

I hope this helps set some more realistic expectations of what the Milky Way looks like from a Dark Site!