军情解码
Exclusive: ‘Like ripples on the sea’: Chinese astronomer tells Global Times how the Milky Way got its newly discovered ‘wrinkles’_我的网站
一 | 高市早苗首相が電光石火の衆院解散で、てんやわんやの年明けでしたが、芸能界も驚きのニュースが続きます。米倉涼子（50）は243日ぶりに公の場に姿を見せ、活動休止から8カ月が過ぎた元TOKIOの国分太一（51）には新たな動きがありました。
二 | 今回もいつものメンバーが深掘りします。
Chinese astronomers have discovered that the Milky Way is not a simple, smoothly warped disk, but contains widespread "wrinkle-like" structures resembling ripples on a water surface, providing new clues to understanding the galaxy's 3D structure and evolutionary history.
The discovery was made by a research team from the Purple Mountain Observatory (PMO) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, using data from the "Milky Way Imaging Scroll Painting" (MWISP) survey. The findings were published online titled "Widespread corrugations superimposed on the Galactic warp in the outer CO disk" in the journal Nature Astronomy on August 7.
For decades, astronomers have known that the Milky Way's disk is not perfectly flat. Instead, its outer regions are slightly bent upward on one side and downward on the other - a structure known as a galactic warp.
However, the latest study shows that this large-scale bending is not the whole story. Smaller-scale vertical fluctuations are also embedded within the warped disk, creating a more complicated 3D structure.
"In many illustrations and in the public imagination, the Milky Way looks like a flat vinyl record," Sun Yan, associate researcher at PMO and the first author of the paper, told the Global Times on Tuesday. "In reality, the outer part of the Milky Way is more like a record that has been heated and deformed, with one side lifted and the other side lowered. That is the warp. On top of this large-scale deformation, there are additional smaller waves, which we call corrugations," Sun explained.
Using a more everyday analogy, Sun compared the Milky Way's structure to a sea surface. The warp is like a large swell that changes the overall height of the ocean, while corrugations are smaller waves superimposed on that swell.
"The two structures exist together. In our data analysis, we first removed the large-scale warp model, which allowed us to reveal the smaller wave-like patterns hidden underneath," Sun said.
The research focused on the Milky Way's outer gas disk rather than the more familiar stellar disk. According to Sun, cold molecular gas and stars provide two complementary ways to study the galaxy.
"Molecular gas is a sensitive probe for studying the vertical structure and dynamics of the galactic disk because it is concentrated near the disk plane and responds strongly to disturbances," she said.
Molecular gas is also the raw material for star formation, meaning its distribution is closely connected with the formation of young stars. The researchers traced this gas through carbon monoxide (CO) emission, which can penetrate regions obscured by interstellar dust and provide a different perspective from optical observations of stars.
The breakthrough was made possible by the MWISP survey, conducted using China's 13.7-meter millimeter-wave telescope.
"MWISP can be understood as giving the Milky Way a large-scale medical examination using millimeter-wave observations," Sun said.
Previous CO surveys were limited in sensitivity and coverage, making it difficult to accurately study the distant outer regions of the galaxy. In contrast, the latest study identified more than 30,000 molecular cloud samples, covering about half of the Milky Way's outer disk and extending to a distance of about 26 kiloparsecs from the Galactic center.
With such a large dataset, researchers were able to first establish a model of the overall warp and then separate subtle structures from the background. The newly identified corrugations have radial wavelengths of about 3.9-7.9 kiloparsecs and vertical amplitudes of about 100-200 parsecs.
The study also identified a corrugation structure extending about 40 kiloparsecs in azimuth at a distance of around 12.7 kiloparsecs from the Galactic center. In some spiral arm regions, vertical displacements can reach approximately 200 parsecs.
The researchers believe these large-scale vertical fluctuations are likely related to "bending waves" triggered by external gravitational disturbances, suggesting that the Milky Way might have experienced more complex interactions during its evolutionary history.
Although the newly discovered structures sound dramatic, they do not have any direct impact on Earth or the solar system. "Humans cannot directly sense these corrugations," Sun said. "Their scales reach thousands or even tens of thousands of light-years, and even if these structures are evolving, such changes would not be directly perceptible on human timescales."
The study focuses on the outer disk of the Milky Way and does not include the region around the solar system. "There is currently no evidence that these structures have any observable influence on Earth's environment," Sun said.
Instead, their significance lies in what they reveal about the past. Like geological layers recording Earth's history, these galactic structures preserve traces of the Milky Way's evolutionary journey, the researchers explained.
Researchers said future studies combining more precise motion measurements and numerical simulations could further reveal the origins of these structures and their role in the long-term evolution of the Milky Way.
。 週刊誌記者 まさかの衆院解散だったね。解散から投開票まで16日間という戦後最短の決戦。36年ぶり真冬の総選挙は、雪や寒さで取材も苦労した。 ワイドデスク 高市首相の「自分勝手暴走解散」なんて批判もあった。なのにふたを開けたら歴史的圧勝。討論会のドタキャン騒動など失点になりそうだったけど、高市フィーバーで公示前の198から戦後最多316議席に大きく伸ばした。
三 | リポーター でも開票センターの首相は笑顔少なめだった。
四 | あまりに勝ち過ぎ「浮かれてると思われないよう笑顔は控えて」と党の指示があったようだ。
五 | 週刊誌記者 初当選の“高市チルドレン”は66人。2005年の郵政解散で当選した“小泉チルドレン”杉村太蔵氏のような奔放な言動を恐れてか、新人教育セミナーを行ってるみたいだね。勝ち過ぎたからこその悩み。
六 | とにかく「高市さんに特別表彰を」なんて声も出るほどの圧勝だ。 スポニチ本紙デスク さすがに冗談だろうけど、中道改革連合の野田佳彦前共同代表を表彰しようって声が自民党内で出たと聞いた。
七 | 野田氏は首相時代の2012年、自ら解散に踏み切り、民主党は壊滅的な大敗を喫した。 リポーター 野田氏に2回も救われたってわけか。確かに自民党内も序盤は強い危機感があったと聞く。連立解消で離れた公明票が立民系議員に流れたら、大幅に議席を減らすとの見方もあった。 ワイドデスク でも立民系の中道議員は小選挙区で7人しか勝てなかった。
八 | 安住淳前共同幹事長や岡田克也氏、枝野幸男氏ら重鎮が大量落選して焼け野原。恨み節が噴出してる。参院や地方の立民議員は中道合流に及び腰だし、政党交付金も激減するから党職員のリストラは不可避。結党間もないのに早くも分裂含みの様相だ。 本紙デスク 新代表・小川淳也氏の下、党の立て直しが急務だけど、一部でささやかれるのは、玉木雄一郎氏率いる国民とのタッグ。ともに香川県立高松高校から東大法学部に進学した先輩後輩。小川氏が新代表になった際には一番に玉木氏に報告したようだし、玉木氏も「野党連携を図っていく」と述べている。 週刊誌記者 玉木氏は選挙前に協力を否定したけど、中道の救世主になるのかな。首相からも「親和性が高い」などと“プロポーズ”を受けているけど、昨年も秋波を送られながらグズグズしすぎて、維新に先を越された。優柔不断な面がある。 本紙デスク 衆院で3分の2議席を得た高市政権だけど、国民は“白紙委任”したわけじゃないからね。野党も存在感を見せてほしいところだ。
九 |
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Published on:08:35:58