Open Astronomy (Dec 2015)
On the Possibility of Determining the Distance to the Galactic Center from the Geometry of Spiral Arm Segments
Abstract
A new approach to determining the solar galactocentric distance, R0, from the geometry of spiral-arm segments is proposed. Geometric aspects of the problem are analyzed and a simplified three-point method for estimating R0 from objects in a spiral segment is developed in order to test the proposed approach. An estimate of R0 = 8.44 ± 0.45 kpc is obtained by applying the method to masers with measured trigonometric parallaxes, and statistical properties of the R0 estimation from spiral segments are analyzed.
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