July 26, 2016

Artistic representation of the gas halo surrounding the Milky Way and the Magellanic Clouds (Image NASA/CXC/M.Weiss/Ohio State/A Gupta et al)

An article published in “The Astrophysical Journal” describes a research on the huge halo of gas surrounding the Milky Way. A group of astronomers at the University of Michigan used data from ESA’s XMM-Newton telescope’s archives to discover that the galaxy’s halo spins in the same direction and at a speed comparable with its disk. This discovery may help better understand the formation of galaxies and solar systems within them.