Astronomers revealed they might have found an enormous X-shaped structure located right in the center of our Milky Way galaxy.

According to the scientists involved, the central bulge of the X structure is made of numerous stars, and its discovery was possible through a research effort funded by Twitter.

The center of the Milky Way – which is a barred spiral galaxy – is filled with hundreds of billions of stars, estimated to measure roughly 100,000 light years in diameter. Unlike conventional spiral galaxies, barred spiral galaxies like ours do not feature a bulge containing spiral arms.

Instead, the center has a particular bar-shaped or rectangular structure inside them and a bulge of constantly moving stars in its center. The intensive study of the Milky Way was possible thanks to the survey data provided by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE).

It was back in 2010 when WISE surveyed the entire sky, leading astronomers to suspect that the center of the Milky Way includes an X-shaped structure. However, no one had a chance to observe it directly.

Last year, when the galactic maps generated by WISE were posted on Twitter, the curiosity regarding the central bulge of our galaxy came to the public’s attention again.

That allowed astronomers to review the galaxy’s structure thoroughly once more. In turn, the renewed research effort sparked by Twitter resulted in the unexpected findings of the X shape at the center of the galaxy.

What does the X mark tell us about Milky Way’s history?

“We see the boxy shape, and the X within it, clearly in the WISE image, which demonstrates that internal formation processes have driven the bulge formation,” explained Melissa Ness, one of the two researchers from Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany who were leading the study.

More conclusions about the history of our galaxy can be drawn from this discovery. According to Ness, the fact that the shape is fairly undisrupted suggests that the Milky Way has led a quiet life with little to no major merging events after the formation of the central bulge.

This research project could put an end to the longstanding debate about whether or not there is an X-shaped structure at the core of the Milky Way.
Image Source: ABC News