Today’s news reminds us that our world isn’t the only thing broken in our solar system. Astronomers have determined that the structure of the Milky Way’s Sagittarius arm is broken, with a set of stars sticking out in a disjointed way for unknown reasons.

Yes, folks, our galaxy is broken.

This is actually pretty common. As we look out across the universe, we see a lot of spiral galaxies that have discontinuous structures or weird compound fractures like what is being seen in our own galaxy.

This particular structure is home to several star-forming nebulae, including the Eagle Nebula, Omega Nebula, Trifid Nebula, and Lagoon Nebula. This richness of star clusters and their surrounding stars became a target for the Gaia and Spitzer space telescopes, and according to project lead Michael Kuhn: When we put the Gaia and Spitzer data together and finally see this detailed, three-dimensional map, we can see that there’s quite a bit of complexity in this region that just hasn’t been apparent before.

Co-author Robert Benjamin further explains: Ultimately, this is a reminder that there are many uncertainties about the large-scale structure of the Milky Way, and we need to look at the details if we want to understand that bigger picture. This structure is a small piece of the Milky Way, but it could tell us something significant about the Galaxy as a whole.

This work appears in Astronomy & Astrophysics, and now you know that when someone complains the world is broken, it’s actually the entire galaxy that has problems.

More Information

NASA JPL press release

“A high pitch angle structure in the Sagittarius Arm,” M. A. Kuhn et al., 2021 July 21, Astronomy & Astrophysics