Detecting thousands of mysterious ‘strings’ in the center of the Milky Way
- Tram Ho
Each of these previously undiscovered filamentous structures is between 5 and 10 light-years across — thousands of times the distance between them, according to new research published June 2 in the Astrophysical Journal. Sun and Pluto. However, they are only visible at radio wavelengths, suggesting that these structures are likely created by outbursts of high-energy particles invisible to the naked eye, Live Science reports. .
Specifically, the team determined they were created from cosmic ray electrons traveling through a magnetic field at nearly the speed of light.
According to the observations made, hundreds or thousands of filamentous structures all seem to point directly at the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy, suggesting that they may be ‘unhealed scars’ of a massive explosion. Exploding the black hole with an extremely high energy output, enough to tear apart the surrounding gas clouds.
Radio observations of the center of the Milky Way reveal hundreds of newly discovered filamentous structures (Image: Farhad Yusef-Zadeh/Northwestern University)
The supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, which lies 26,000 light-years from Earth, has been named Sagittarius A* (or Sgr A*). It is considered a ‘cosmic monster’ with a mass greater than 4 million times the mass of the Sun. Its intense gravity binds our galaxy together — but its monstrous ‘appetite’ also leads to some…severe indigestion.
Previous radio observations of Sgr A* by the group of Yusef-Zadeh, a professor of physics and astronomy at Northwestern University in Illinois, discovered two giant bubbles of energy 50,000 years wide. light, stretching in the North and South planes of the central black hole of the Milky Way. Parallel that are 1000 vertical filamentous structures, also radiating from the black hole Sgr A*, and hundreds of vertical filaments twinning or clustering together in the same region.
The giant bubbles at the center of our galaxy (in blue) are likely evidence of an outburst of a black hole millions of years ago. (Photo: NASA/MEERKAT)
According to the team, both of these mysterious phenomena are likely related to the activity of the black hole Sgr A* about 6 million years ago, rather than the supernova explosions they had previously speculated.
Reportedly, the researchers discovered the structure by analyzing images from the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory’s MeerKAT telescope, which gathers 64 radio antennas nearly 20 meters high and results connected in a sparsely populated area stretching 8km.
Refer to Live Science
Source : Genk