Source – livemint.com

– Washington: Researchers have created a new map of the Milky Way which shows that nearly a third of the stars have dramatically changed their orbits.

The discovery, by a team of scientists with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), brings a new understanding of how stars are formed, and how they travel throughout our galaxy.

“In our modern world, many people move far away from their birthplaces, sometimes halfway around the world,” said Michael Hayden, New Mexico State University (NMSU) astronomy graduate student and lead author of the new study.

“Now we’re finding the same is true of stars in our galaxy — about 30% of the stars in our galaxy have travelled a long way from where they were born,” Hayden said.

To build a new map of the Milky Way, scientists used SDSS Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Explorer (APOGEE) spectrograph to observe 100,000 stars during a 4-year period. For the last six years, NMSU astronomers in the College of Arts and Sciences, and collaborators, have been using the 2.5-metre SDSS telescope at the Apache Point, located in the Sacramento Mountains to complete experiments that includes studies of Milky Way stars.

http://www.livemint.com/Politics/rUwsDwqGwwVa2O7VMBd6iN/Third-of-stars-in-Milky-Way-have-dramatically-changed-orbit.html