Discovered missing branches of the Milky Way

The study of giant stars has confirmed that the Milky Way has four spiral arms, ending the long-held argument that our galaxy has only two arms.

The conclusion was drawn in a 12-year study, based on data from radio observatories in Australia and China, when observing 1,650 giant Milky Way stars.

New image of the Milky Way, showing 4 spiral arms - (Photo: NASA)

In the 1950s, astronomers used images to observe gas clouds in the Milky Way, where imaginary stars were, and discovered four branches of this spiral galaxy.

However, the 2008 published data of the Spitzer telescope shows that the Milky Way has only two branches, based on the analysis of data collected from 110 million stars.

Recently, the expert group of University of Leeds (UK) confirmed the hypothesis of 4 branches of the Milky Way.

'Not Spitzer's data is wrong, and ours is right, but it's because the two surveys choose to analyze differently' , according to Space.com, co-author of the study, Professor Melvin Hoare.

Professor Hoare said Spitzer only studied lower-mass and cooler stars, while his team observed giant stars with short lifetimes, only about 10 million years old.