SCIENCE & TECH Finding explanation for Milky Way’s warp

Anne J. Manning

September 27, 2023

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/09/harvard-astronomers-find-explanation-for-milky-ways-warp/'

This article is about the Milky Way's shape and theories on why it looks the way it is. The Milky Way's warp is a phenomenon where the galactic disk is not perfectly flat but rather twist or bend. Recent research led by Harvard astronomers from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard and Smithsonian provided evidence that the Milky Way's warp can be explained with dark matter. While dark matter can't be observed directly due to not interacting with light, researchers based their calculation on previous works to find the stellar halo surrounding the Milky Way to be tilted and elliptical in shape.