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19:47 GMT

New Results From Opposite Length Scales

Last week saw a few interesting results announced from completely opposite length scales - from the atomic (nanometer) to the cosmic (kiloparsecs), a difference in scale of 1029. A group from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has announced a new measurement of the distance to the Perseus spiral arm of our galaxy (the earth is actually located in the short Orion arm which in fact is inside the larger Perseus arm.) Prior measurements relying on the brightness of certain stars and the rotation of the galaxy differed by a factor of two and are inherently less accurate than the parallax measurement made in the Harvard-Smithsonian study. Using the VLBA (Very Large Baseline Array) of radio telescopes, they measured the slight change in relative position of region of the Perseus cluster against a distant background of quasars as the earth orbited the sun. The result: 1910 parsecs (6230 light years). A by-product of this measurement was the determination that the object they tracked (W3OH) was moving slower than expected and could indicate the spiral arms are denser than their surroundings. -more-
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