According to recent research, scientists have uncovered what seems to be a small spiral galaxy at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy.
The spiral, on the other hand, is composed of gas and dust and circles around a single big star.
This huge star, located around 26,000 light-years from Earth, is approximately 32 times the size of our solar system’s Sun.
It is also surrounded by a bigger disc of spinning plasma known as a “protostellar disc.”
Thousands of these discs may be found across the cosmos. They assist to ‘feed’ nascent stars, allowing them to grow into massive suns.
A Unique Find
The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope in Chile was used to find this intriguing spiral.
It’s a ‘unique’ finding since scientists have never seen anything like it before. It is a disc that looks like a small galaxy and is perilously near to our galaxy’s core.
The researchers also discovered that the disc does not seem to be moving in a manner compatible with other known spiral objects.
Instead, it seems that the object developed as a result of a near-collision with another body.
To put their notion to the test, the researchers examined hundreds of probable orbits for the odd object.
They then ran a simulation to see whether any of them could create the spiral form.
Following their analyses, the researchers determined that outer objects may be capable of blowing star discs into spiral shapes.
“The nice match between analytical calculations, numerical simulation, and ALMA observations provides robust evidence that the spiral arms in the disc are relics of the intruding object’s flyby,” study co-author Lu Xing. He is an associate researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, said in a statement.
The results essentially suggest that discs are prone to phenomena such as flybys early in their development.
And these processes have a huge impact on the development of stars and planets.
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