Mysterious X-shaped Structure Found in Center of Milky Way Galaxy

After a series of tweets between astronomers, debating about the formation of the Milky Way, a new study then investigated a strange structure located in the center of the Milky Way galaxy, confirming evidence of an X-shaped formation at its core.

By using NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), new data was obtained that led to the discovery of this X-shaped cosmic object which was first revealed by astronomer Dustin Lang from the Dunlap Institute of Toronto during a Twitter debate. In a tweet, Lang explained how "I don't want to admit how long it took to summarize 150 gigapixels into this WISE W1/W2 image", confirming the results.

In 2010, Lang used data from two infrared surveys carried out by WISE that mapped the entire Milky Way. Infrared surveys are used by astronomers to peer through cosmic dust and gas that can obscure views where planets, stars and galaxies might be hidden. Lang then made this new study available online, when other astronomers became curious.

With this new revelation, Melissa Ness of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany, confirmed the significance of this X structure. She says that this "bulge" is a  key signature of the formation of the Milky Way. By understanding this galactic bulge, it can provide new clues about the key processes that shaped our galaxy.

Lang's tweets consisted of imagery of the Milky Way, that appears to possess a galactic bulge, the shape of a football as opposed to a flat disk. After astronomers intensively studied this mysterious structure, the bulge possessing an X structure is apparently something that was never identified in past surveys.

Lang explains that ever since this controversy, about whether or not this X-shaped structure exists, more evidence was produced in this new study that confirms its existence thanks to new views of our galaxy's core.

This new study is published in the Astronomical Journal.