双色球

Exclusive: ‘Like ripples on the sea’: Chinese astronomer tells Global Times how the Milky Way got its newly discovered ‘wrinkles’_我的网站

一 |     今年，做了6年炒货生意的唐山市路北区商户董朝辉有了“新伙伴”——智能炒货机器人。8月18日上午，董朝辉打开手机软件，轻轻点击开始键，智能炒货机器人随即启动，自动完成预热、上料等工序。

二 |     

    Schematic diagram of Milky Way Photo: Courtesy of Purple Mountain Observatory (PMO)
Chinese astronomers have discovered that the Milky Way is not a simple, smoothly warped disk, but contains widespread "wrinkle-like" structures resembling ripples on a water surface, providing new clues to understanding the galaxy's 3D structure and evolutionary history.
The discovery was made by a research team from the Purple Mountain Observatory (PMO) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, using data from the "Milky Way Imaging Scroll Painting" (MWISP) survey. The findings were published online titled "Widespread corrugations superimposed on the Galactic warp in the outer CO disk" in the journal Nature Astronomy on August 7.
For decades, astronomers have known that the Milky Way's disk is not perfectly flat. Instead, its outer regions are slightly bent upward on one side and downward on the other - a structure known as a galactic warp.
However, the latest study shows that this large-scale bending is not the whole story. Smaller-scale vertical fluctuations are also embedded within the warped disk, creating a more complicated 3D structure.
"In many illustrations and in the public imagination, the Milky Way looks like a flat vinyl record," Sun Yan, associate researcher at PMO and the first author of the paper, told the Global Times on Tuesday. "In reality, the outer part of the Milky Way is more like a record that has been heated and deformed, with one side lifted and the other side lowered. That is the warp. On top of this large-scale deformation, there are additional smaller waves, which we call corrugations," Sun explained.
Using a more everyday analogy, Sun compared the Milky Way's structure to a sea surface. The warp is like a large swell that changes the overall height of the ocean, while corrugations are smaller waves superimposed on that swell.
"The two structures exist together. In our data analysis, we first removed the large-scale warp model, which allowed us to reveal the smaller wave-like patterns hidden underneath," Sun said.
The research focused on the Milky Way's outer gas disk rather than the more familiar stellar disk. According to Sun, cold molecular gas and stars provide two complementary ways to study the galaxy.
"Molecular gas is a sensitive probe for studying the vertical structure and dynamics of the galactic disk because it is concentrated near the disk plane and responds strongly to disturbances," she said.
Molecular gas is also the raw material for star formation, meaning its distribution is closely connected with the formation of young stars. The researchers traced this gas through carbon monoxide (CO) emission, which can penetrate regions obscured by interstellar dust and provide a different perspective from optical observations of stars.
The breakthrough was made possible by the MWISP survey, conducted using China's 13.7-meter millimeter-wave telescope. 
"MWISP can be understood as giving the Milky Way a large-scale medical examination using millimeter-wave observations," Sun said.
Previous CO surveys were limited in sensitivity and coverage, making it difficult to accurately study the distant outer regions of the galaxy. In contrast, the latest study identified more than 30,000 molecular cloud samples, covering about half of the Milky Way's outer disk and extending to a distance of about 26 kiloparsecs from the Galactic center.
With such a large dataset, researchers were able to first establish a model of the overall warp and then separate subtle structures from the background. The newly identified corrugations have radial wavelengths of about 3.9-7.9 kiloparsecs and vertical amplitudes of about 100-200 parsecs.
The study also identified a corrugation structure extending about 40 kiloparsecs in azimuth at a distance of around 12.7 kiloparsecs from the Galactic center. In some spiral arm regions, vertical displacements can reach approximately 200 parsecs.
The researchers believe these large-scale vertical fluctuations are likely related to "bending waves" triggered by external gravitational disturbances, suggesting that the Milky Way might have experienced more complex interactions during its evolutionary history.
Although the newly discovered structures sound dramatic, they do not have any direct impact on Earth or the solar system. "Humans cannot directly sense these corrugations," Sun said. "Their scales reach thousands or even tens of thousands of light-years, and even if these structures are evolving, such changes would not be directly perceptible on human timescales."
The study focuses on the outer disk of the Milky Way and does not include the region around the solar system. "There is currently no evidence that these structures have any observable influence on Earth's environment," Sun said.
Instead, their significance lies in what they reveal about the past. Like geological layers recording Earth's history, these galactic structures preserve traces of the Milky Way's evolutionary journey, the researchers explained.
Researchers said future studies combining more precise motion measurements and numerical simulations could further reveal the origins of these structures and their role in the long-term evolution of the Milky Way.
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三 | 没过多久，色泽均匀的熟瓜子从出料口滑落，香气弥漫开来。“炒瓜子看似很简单，其实要求很高。温度差两三度，味道就差不少。”董朝辉说，过去炒制一锅好货全凭经验，品质常有起伏，如今使用智能炒货机器人一键操作，不但火候均匀、口感一致，还有盐炒、清炒等多种模式，省心又便捷。

四 | 董朝辉的“新伙伴”——智能炒货机器人出自唐山酷微自动化科技有限公司。在公司生产车间，十余台长1.1米、宽0.6米、高1.2米的智能炒货机器人被打包装箱，即将发往湖南、四川等地。“这款机器人能感知环境温湿度、原料含水率，自主调整炒制节奏，实现炒制全流程无人化作业。”公司总经理万大顺介绍。凭借稳定性能和标准化炒制效果，智能炒货机器人一经推出就深受市场欢迎。

五 | 目前，唐山酷微月均生产设备近百台，订单已排到今年年底。订单火爆的背后，与万大顺的从业经历有关。

六 | 此前，他经营连锁炒货店，门店一度扩张到40余家。规模上去了，问题也随之而来，手艺过硬的炒货师傅稀缺，各门店炒制水准参差不齐，很难做到口味一致。行业痛点恰恰蕴藏着转型升级的机遇。

七 | 2024年5月，万大顺决定换赛道发展，从卖炒货转向生产加工设备，把老师傅的经验变成标准化数据，打造一款风味恒定、操控稳定的智能炒货机器人。

八 | 跨赛道发展，可没那么简单，技术研发、生产制造、市场开拓，每一关都不容易。

九 | “在经营炒货店时，我们一直使用的是半自动设备，有一定的技术积累。”万大顺介绍，在此基础上，公司引入多模态感知、AI智能决策、物联网云平台等前沿技术，把老师傅们的炒制过程拆解成上千组参数，依托海量炒制数据形成可追溯、可复制的数字工艺包，破解传统炒制容易出现的粘锅、配料比不稳定等难题。

十 | 随后，万大顺拿着设计方案，找到唐山百川机器人共享制造工厂，依托其成熟的制造能力完成结构件生产。企业自己的技术团队则负责硬件集成组装和整机调试，样机从图纸到落地仅用了四个月。“如今，设备已迭代到3.0版本，稳定性、感知精度进一步提升，并实现了批量生产。”万大顺说。

十一 | 打开销路又是一道难题。唐山酷微跳出线下跑客户的传统模式，将智能炒货机器人搬到线上平台，让设备自己“表演”。

十二 | “智能炒货机器人一上线，就吸引了全国各地客商关注。

十三 | 有一位威海客商一次就预订了20台。”万大顺说，良好的市场反馈快速积累起行业口碑，订单接踵而至，产品供不应求。“目前，智能炒货机器人已在个体门店、连锁品牌、新零售终端等多种场景应用。

十四 | ”万大顺说，公司正持续优化设备，新增无线网络互联、双语操作系统等功能，提升产品综合适配能力，为拓展国外市场做足准备。（日报记者 师源）。

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Published on:18:08:20