A group of astronomers from the University College London, U.K. have recently discovered a certain group of stars noted for its ability of high rotation velocity residing outside the solar radius in our Milky Way galaxy. The team has found this group; which moves considerably much faster than the other group of stars could potentially provide other essential data that can really be used in studying stellar dynamics.
ESA's Gaia Satellite To Survey 1 Billion Stars
According to reports that was released by Phys Org, the discovery was made possible when experts have combed through the Tycho-Gaia astrometric solution (TGAS) data included in data release 1 (DR1) from ESA's Gaia satellite. It was said that the spacecraft is bound to complete a survey of one billion stars in our galaxy as well as other local galactic neighborhood, which would be able to determine their exact positions with an accuracy of microarcseconds.
In one of their statements, study lead author, Jason Hunt of the University College London, U.K, said that it took them a number of tries before being able to finally detect this group of fast rotating stars since the Gaia DR1 only provides velocities in two directions across the sky, and not line-of-sight velocity toward and away from us. However, what made it possible for them to estimate the rotation velocity is by looking directly toward or away from the galactic center.
Stars' Rapid Rotation; Faster Than The Sun
Learning Freely has also revealed that the astronomers was able to allegedly calculate that this newly detected group of stars is therefore rotating faster than the sun by about 20 km s-1. Moreover, in their quest to explain these distinct velocities, it was found that the team has assumed they are caused by the Perseus Arm known as one of the two major spiral arms of the Milky Way galaxy.
As of the present time, the scientists were reportedly hoping that data that sheds some new light on this case could be delivered by Gaia's data release 2 (DR2), scheduled to be published in November 2017. Ultimately, Hunt claimed that if their findings would be proven by further studies, it can be used as a strong evidence for the theory which proposes that spiral arms travel as density waves through the disc.
