Our home galaxy is not a run-of-the-mill spiral, at least when it comes to chemistry.
The Milky Way is shaped like a disk, so the scientists focused on how alien scientists would see the abundance of metals vary within the galaxy. As stars grow, the process of nuclear fusion that helps keep stars alive produces metals within the stars, and when massive stars die inexplosions, they expel those metals outward. As such, stars born earlier in time contain fewer metals, whereas later-born stars hold more.
The scientists found that if they tracked the average metal content of stars from the Milky Way's core outward, it increased, reaching a metal content close to that ofHowever, at greater distances from the Milky Way's core, the average metal content drops, reaching about one-third of the sun's value about 50,000 light-years from the galaxy's center.
The astronomers then compared the Milky Way with 321 galaxies in the MaNGA survey with masses similar to our galaxy that also feature similar amounts of stars. These galaxies are all also visible face-on, helping the researchers see how metal levels vary across each galaxy. The scientists used these same criteria to identify 134 Milky-Way-like galaxies in the TNG50 simulation.
In addition, the team found that the chemical nature of the Milky Way is rare among galaxies of its rough shape and structure.
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