Re: Are the galactic arms named?

Area: Astronomy
Posted By: David Barlow, Private individual, Grad education in Physics/Astrophysics and Comp. Support
Date: Mon Mar 24 05:09:06 1997

Message:

Mike

Our sun and solar system are indeed in a Galactic Spiral Arm. It is called the Orion arm as the bulk of it lies in the constellation of Orion. In fact we are on the inside edge of the arm. The other nearer Spiral Arms are the Perseus Arm about 6000 lyr further out from the galactic central and the Sagittarius-Cygnus Arm that is about 6000 lyr nearer the galactic center. Click here to see more info on Galaxies and their make up. I would also recommend any good introductory astronomy text book from a library if you wish to know more.

As the Milky Way is a flattened disk with us in the middle, we can not optically see what lies towards the center or beyond it. There is simply too much gas and dust in the way. It is possible to see the far side of the Milky Way using Radio Telescopes and Spiral Arms have been detected. As yet these are unnamed simply because there is no need to name them

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