Milky Way evolution on a human timescale

TL;DR

This paper uses decades-long observational data of the Milky Way to reveal rapid changes in key galactic properties, suggesting active evolution on human timescales.

Contribution

It demonstrates that significant galactic characteristics can evolve noticeably within a few decades, challenging traditional views of galaxy evolution.

Findings

Rapid evolution of the Milky Way's central black hole mass

Fast changes in the pattern speed of the galactic bar

Short timescale variations in the Sun-Galactic center distance

Abstract

How do galaxies form and evolve? This is one of the most puzzling questions in astronomy. Galaxy assembly takes place throughout the entire history of the Universe, but our understanding of it is hampered by the unfortunate fact that we can only observe galaxies at a single moment in time. Here, we use archival data of decades-long monitoring of the Milky Way to examine some of its key characteristics, namely the mass of its central black hole, the pattern speed of the bar, and the distance from the Sun to the Galactic centre. We find a surprisingly fast evolution of these three properties on a timescale of only a few decades, and speculate that it might be driven by shared physical processes.