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The Long Bar in the Milky Way: Corroboration of an Old Hypothesis

Recent Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire data have further confirmed the hypothesis of the existence of an in-plane long bar different from the bulge of the Milky Way with the same characteristics as emphasized some years ago by our team. In this paper we present two new analyses that corroborate recent and earlier claims concerning the existence in our Galaxy of a long, flat bar with approximate dimensions of 7.8 kpc × 1.2 kpc × 0.2 kpc and a position angle of approximately 43°: (1) star counts with 2MASS All-Sky Data Release and Midcourse Space Experiment data, which give an excess in the plane region along 0° < l < 30° compared with -30° < l < 0° that cannot be due to the bulge, spiral arms, a ring, or extinction; and (2) new data on the distance of the long bar using the red clump method, together with recent observations of our own that are compared with our model and that are in agreement with the long-bar scenario.