Scientists Just Spotted A Weird X-Shaped Structure At The Heart Of The Milky Way

A mysterious, gigantic ‘X’ marks the spot at the centre of our own galaxy, the Milky Way.

Scientists re-analysed data from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), a space telescope launched by NASA in 2009 - and saw evidence of a huge cross at the centre of our galaxy.

The X - an enormous structure made of stars - could offer an insight into how our galaxy formed, the researchers believe.

The Milky Way Galaxy is a barred spiral galaxy: a disk-shaped collection of dust, gas and billions of stars, 100,000 light-years in diameter.

It is far from a simple disk structure, being comprised of two spiral arms, a bar-shaped feature that runs through its centre, and a central bulge of stars.

The central bulge, like other barred galaxy’s bulges, resembles a rectangular box or peanut when viewed – as we view it – from within the plane of the galaxy. The X-shaped structure is an integral component of the bulge.

Astronomers think the bulge could have formed in two different ways: it may have formed when the Milky Way Galaxy merged with other galaxies; or it may have formed as an outgrowth of the bar, which itself forms from the evolving galactic disk.

‘The bulge is a key signature of formation of the Milky Way Galaxy,’ says Melissa Ness, a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg.

‘If we understand the bulge we will understand the key processes that have formed and shaped our galaxy.’