An international team of astrophysicists has discovered hundreds of mysterious structures in the center of the Milky Way galaxy.Video above: James Webb Telescope spots water in rare cometThese one-dimensional cosmic threads are hundreds of horizontal or radial filaments — slender, elongated bodies of luminous gas that potentially originated a few million years ago when outflow from Sagittarius A*, the Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole, interacted with surrounding materials, according to a study published Friday in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. The filaments are relatively short in length, each measuring 5 to 10 light-years.The findings come nearly 40 years after Farhad Yusef-Zadeh, the study’s lead author, and other researchers discovered another population of nearly 1,000 one-dimensional filaments, which are vertical and much larger at up to 150 light-years long each, near the galaxy’s center. Yusef-Zadeh and collaborators also found hundreds more paired and clustered vertical filaments in the same area in 2022, realizing the filaments were likely related to Sagittarius A* activity rather than bursts of supernovae, which they had previously thought. The new study both reinforces and builds upon the earlier findings.Finding the “new population of structures that seem to be pointing in the direction of the black hole” was a surprise, Yusef-Zadeh, a professor of physics and astronomy at Northwestern University’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, said in a news release.“I was actually stunned when I saw these. We had to do a lot of work to establish that we weren’t fooling ourselves,” added Yusef-Zadeh, who’s also a member of the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics. “We found that these filaments are not random but appear to be tied to the outflow of our black hole. … It is satisfying when one finds order in (the) middle of a chaotic field of the nucleus of our galaxy.”The findings related to the black hole located about 26,000 light-years from Earth are “really exciting” and “demonstrate how beautiful the universe is,” said Erika Hamden, an assistant professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona who wasn’t involved in the study.Sagittarius A* “is the closest supermassive black hole to us, but it’s relatively quiet and therefore somewhat difficult to really study,” Hamden added. “But this work provides evidence that it was recently ejecting quite a lot of energy into space in the form of a jet and conical outflow.”Learning more about the Milky WayThe researchers found the structures by analyzing images produced by the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory’s MeerKAT telescope, which has 64 satellite dishes that are each 65 feet (nearly 20 meters) tall and connected across 5 miles (about 8 kilometers) of a sparsely populated area with minimal interference.“The new MeerKAT observations have been a game changer,” Yusef-Zadeh said. “It’s really a technical achievement from radio astronomers.”Despite the similarities between the newly discovered filaments and those identified in 1984, the authors of the new study don’t think the populations share exactly the same traits.The vertical filaments are located perpendicular to the galactic plane, while the horizontal ones are parallel to the plane and point radially toward the black hole, according to the news release. The vertical filaments surround the nucleus of the Milky Way, but the horizontal ones appear to spread out to one side toward the black hole.“The distribution and alignment of the filaments can help show how the material has moved and distorted in the past,” Hamden said.Their behavior also differs: The horizontal filaments emit thermal radiation and material associated with molecular clouds partially or fully embedded in the outflow from the black hole, the authors wrote. Molecular clouds consist of gas, dust and stars. The vertical filaments, on the other hand, are magnetic and hold cosmic ray electrons moving nearly as fast as the speed of light.The authors think further studying the newfound filaments could help them “learn more about the black hole’s spin and accretion disk orientation,” Yusef-Zadeh said.A black hole’s accretion disk is the thin, hot structure resulting from material from a nearby star being pulled into a circle around the black hole.Follow-up is also needed to determine whether the jet-driven outflow from the black hole, and therefore more filaments, appear on both sides of the black hole, Hamden said. A jet in this context is a beam of matter ejected from some astronomical objects.A black hole “typically ejects jets symmetrically … so there should be a pair,” Hamden added. “One way to confirm that the (filament) structure is created by something like a jet is to find both sides of it.”This would add “to the complex, active picture of our own Milky Way,” she said.Yusef-Zadeh said he believes their work is “never complete.”“We always need to make new observations,” he said, “and continually challenge our ideas and tighten up our analysis.”

mm mm. Yeah. A supermassive black hole lies at the center of our galaxy, The Milky Way. It's a cosmic phenomenon four million times the size of the sun, creating an area of space with extreme gravitational and magnetic events meaning the area is obscured to the naked even telescope die despite only being 25,800 light years away. But now, with the help of both the chandra X ray Observatory space telescope and the meerkat radio telescope, astronomers have been able to capture this incredible image. It's a beautiful display of vibrant colors where orange, green, blue and purple areas represent X rays and other radio waves are shown as gray and lilac. But they also discovered another phenomenon hidden within our galactic center. This is G zero dot 17-0 0.0.41 It's a streak of gas 20 light years long and 200.2 light years wide. And it's a bit strange, experts believe it was created when two opposite lee aligned magnetic field lines smashed together and broke before connecting, rearranging the magnetic field and creating massive amounts of both kinetic and heat energy. In the process, at least, that's the only way they can explain why it's giving off X rays. Astronomers believe that studying this particular event could help them better understand the physics of magnetic reconnection and give them a better understanding of our own galactic center. Yeah.

An astronomer spent a year working on image of Milky Way's 'downtown' while stuck at home during pandemic

Updated: 8:03 PM EDT May 28, 2021

By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer

NASA has released a stunning new picture of our galaxy's violent, super-energized "downtown."It's a composite of 370 observations over the past two decades by the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory, depicting billions of stars and countless black holes in the center, or heart, of the Milky Way. A radio telescope in South Africa also contributed to the image, for contrast.Astronomer Daniel Wang of the University of Massachusetts Amherst said Friday he spent a year working on this while stuck at home during the pandemic. "What we see in the picture is a violent or energetic ecosystem in our galaxy's downtown," Wang said in an email. "There are a lot of supernova remnants, black holes, and neutron stars there. Each X-ray dot or feature represents an energetic source, most of which are in the center."This busy, high-energy galactic center is 26,000 light years away.His work appears in the June issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.Launched in 1999, Chandra is in an extreme oval orbit around Earth.___The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. —

NASA has released a stunning new picture of our galaxy's violent, super-energized "downtown."

It's a composite of 370 observations over the past two decades by the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory, depicting billions of stars and countless black holes in the center, or heart, of the Milky Way. A radio telescope in South Africa also contributed to the image, for contrast.

Astronomer Daniel Wang of the University of Massachusetts Amherst said Friday he spent a year working on this while stuck at home during the pandemic.

"What we see in the picture is a violent or energetic ecosystem in our galaxy's downtown," Wang said in an email. "There are a lot of supernova remnants, black holes, and neutron stars there. Each X-ray dot or feature represents an energetic source, most of which are in the center."

NASA/CXC/UMass/Q.D. Wang, NRF/SARAO/MeerKAT via AP

This busy, high-energy galactic center is 26,000 light years away.

His work appears in the June issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Launched in 1999, Chandra is in an extreme oval orbit around Earth.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.