Our Galaxy, the Milky Way

The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy whose central part, the rotating bulge, must have mostly formed from the Galactic disk. With new infrared data the spatial structure of the Galactic bar and bulge could be determined for the first time. This makes it possible to predict the orbits of stars in the inner Galaxy and to link these with their chemical properties. With dynamical models we investigate the present-day structure and evolutionary history of our Galaxy.