It is believed that there is a supermassive black hole at the active center of our galaxy. Its surroundings are perhaps the most turbulent and turbulent region in the entire Milky Way. Unusual structures and objects are found here every now and then: the remnants of absorbed galaxies, “bubbles” emitting in gamma waves, stars accelerated to extreme speeds, etc. Recently, this list has been replenished with hundreds of thin filaments, filaments of hot gas, stretching from a black hole. This is reported in a new article, published V The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Northwestern University astronomer Farhad Yusef-Zadeh and his colleagues used data collected by the MeerKAT radio telescope. Back in the 1980s the instrument noticed gas filaments oriented perpendicular to the plane of the galaxy, and now he was able to distinguish filaments located parallel to it. They diverge from the center, like the spokes of a wheel, reaching a length of 5-10 light years. They are noticeably shorter than vertical filaments spanning up to 150 light-years and often appear discontinuous. In addition, there are much fewer of them: not about a thousand, but only a couple of hundred.
Scientists associate differences in the orientation and structure of threads with different mechanisms of their formation. Vertical filaments, emanating from the center more or less perpendicular to the plane of the Milky Way, are formed under the influence of magnetic fields and lie along their lines of force. They reflect the relativistic streams of charged particles that fly out of the vicinity of the black hole, accelerating to near-light speeds.
In contrast, horizontal filaments can form due to heating of matter in the surrounding molecular cloud. Scientists suggest that they arose several million years ago, when a particularly large amount of matter fell into a black hole. This created emissions of powerful, narrow streams of particles and radiation – jets. They are still moving through the substance of the molecular cloud, strongly heating it and leaving behind filaments of hot gas, clearly visible in the radio range.
