About 1,000 mysterious chains have been unveiled at the center of the Milky Way, An unprecedented new telescope image of the Milky Way galaxy's turbulent center reveals nearly 1,000 mysterious strands mysteriously hanging across the universe.
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| About 1,000 mysterious chains have been unveiled at the center of the Milky Way |
One-dimensional strands (or filaments) that extend up to 150 light-years in length are found in pairs and clusters and are often stacked evenly, similar to harp strings. Farhad Yousef-Jadeh of Northwestern University discovered highly organized magnetic filaments using radio wavelength observation in the early 1980s. The mysterious filament he discovered contained cosmic-ray electrons that orbited a magnetic field at speeds close to the speed of light. But since then, their origins have remained an unsolved mystery.
Now, the new image reveals 10 times more filaments than previously discovered, allowing Yousef-Jade and his team to conduct statistical research for the first time across a wide population of filaments. This information can help them unravel long-term mysteries.
This study is currently available online and approved for publication by Astrophysical Journal Letters.
"We have long studied individual filaments from a short-sighted perspective," said Yusuf Jade, the paper's lead author. "Now we're finally seeing the big picture. It's a panoramic view filled with lots of filaments. Just looking at a few filaments gives us a realistic conclusion about what and where they came from. It's hard to figure out. It's a reservoir. . "
Yousef-Jadeh is a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Weinberg University of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University and a member of the Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research Center in Astrophysics (CIERA).
To create images with unprecedented precision and detail, astronomers spent three years exploring the sky and analyzing data at the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO). Researchers used 200 hours of time with SARAO's MeerKAT telescope to sew 20 different observational mosaics from different parts of the sky together towards the center of the Milky Way galaxy 25,000 light-years from Earth. ...
The full picture is an additional ancillary paper led by Oxford University astrophysicist Ian Howe and co-authored by Youssef-Jade, which will appear in the next issue of the Astrophysical Journal. In addition to the filament, the image captures radio radiation from a variety of events, including exploding stars, stellar nurseries, and new supernova remnants.
“It’s like contemporary art,” he said. "These pictures are very beautiful and rich, and all their secrets make it even more interesting."
Yousef-Jade was able to sew more puzzles together, while many mysteries surrounding the filament remained. In their latest study, he and his colleagues specifically investigated the role of cosmic rays in illuminating the filament's magnetic field and magnetic field.
The fluctuations in radiation emitted by filaments are very different from the newly discovered supernova remnants, suggesting a different source of phenomena. Researchers have discovered that the filaments are probably related to the past activity of a supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way, rather than a supernova-intensive explosion. Filaments may also be associated with the giant radioactive bubbles discovered in 2019 by Yousef-Jadeh and colleagues.
"How do you accelerate electrons at speeds close to the speed of light?" He asked. "One idea is that there are several sources at the end of these filaments that are accelerating these particles."
Yousef-Jade and his team are currently identifying and listing each filament. The angles, curves, magnetic fields, spectra, and intensities of each filament will be revealed in future studies. Understanding these properties gives the astrophysics community further clues to the elusive nature of filaments.
Launched in July 2018, the MeerKAT Telescope continues to reveal new privacy.
Yousef-Jade said, "We have certainly come to a step closer to full understanding." "But science is a series of advances at various levels. We want to get to the roots of this, but we need more observation and theoretical analysis. A complete understanding of complex objects. It will take time."
The study was supported by NASA and the National Science Foundation's "Statistical Characteristics of Galactic Center Filament Populations: Spectral Indicators and Equally Distributed Magnetic Fields".
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