Hundreds of mysterious magnetic wires have been detected at the center of the Milky Way, the galaxy where planet Earth is. The discovery was made by scientists through an image captured by a telescope.
According to the survey, the pairs and clusters of wires span nearly 150 light-years in length and are evenly spaced. The strands are estimated to be a few million years old and heterogeneous as they vary in appearance. Some of them resemble harp strings in their thin thickness. Others demonstrate more density like that of a waterfall or even like the rings around Saturn.
On the other hand, 35 years ago, Farhad Yusef-Zadeh, professor of physics and astronomy at Northwestern University and head of the study, identified the strands in the Milky Way for the first time using radio waves. The scientist determined that they were formed by cosmic ray electrons that were moving their magnetic fields close to the speed of light. The origin of these strands, however, remained a mystery.
“We have studied individual filaments for a long time with a myopic view,” Yusef-Zadeh said in a statement. “Right now we have the big picture, a bird’s-eye view filled with an abundance of filaments. But just looking at a few of them makes it difficult to draw any real conclusions about what they are and where they came from. This is a game-changer in furthering our understanding of these structures”, he added.
Now, the new studies have been able to find 10 times more wires than Yusef-Zadeh previously, using the Radio Astronomy Observatory’s MeerKAT telescope in South Africa.
The new, detailed image is made up of a mosaic of 20 different observations taken over three years towards the center of the Milky Way, located 25,000 light-years from Earth.
In addition to the long strands, the image shows the signatures of star birth and the traces of stars destroyed, through radio emissions. Yusef-Zadeh and his research team focused only on the wires and isolated them from the other phenomena captured in the image.
“It’s like modern art,” the scientist said. “These images are so beautiful and rich, and the mystery of it all makes them even more interesting.”
Mosaic image of the center of the Milky Way
Image: Disclosure/Northwestern University
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Investigations and new questions
The amount of radiation varied from other energetic cosmic events, such as supernova remnants, according to an analysis by astronomers, who believe the threads are related to the ancient activity of a black hole at the center of the Milky Way, rather than mere explosions. of stars.
After further investigation of the filaments, Yusef-Zadeh’s team also determined that magnetic fields are strongest along the wires.
“If you were from another planet, for example, and you found a very tall person on Earth, you would assume that all people are tall. But if you do statistics on a group of people, you can find the average height. exactly what we’re doing. We can find the strength of the magnetic fields, their lengths, their orientations and the radiation spectrum,” explained Yusef-Zadeh.
As they work to identify each strand, scientists are still trying to figure out whether the ordered distance is equal between the clumps of strands, the cause of the particles’ acceleration, or whether the strands move with time.
“Every time we answer one question, several more come up,” said the Northwestern University professor. “How do you accelerate electrons close to the speed of light? One idea is that there are some sources at the end of these filaments that are accelerating these particles.”
Yusef-Zadeh believes there is still more information to be discovered about these magnetic threads and hopes to understand how they fit into the tangle of phenomena that occur at the center of the Milky Way. “We hope to get to the bottom of this, but more observations and theoretical analysis are needed,” he said. “A complete understanding of complex objects takes time”.
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