The shape of the Milky Way, usually pictured as a flat spiral, may actually be more like a warped and twisted disk. That’s according to a new study of 1,339 stars whose distances could be measured with great accuracy. The resulting map reveals a tipped, uneven disk of material different from our standard picture.
Mapping Pulsating Stars
The 1,339 stars are all Cepheid variables, a type of pulsating star whose intrinsic brightness depends on how long it takes to vary from bright to dim and