They discover some rare and unprecedented filaments in the center of the Milky Way

2023-06-06T17:15:19.448Z

Highlights: An international team of astrophysicists has discovered hidden filaments at the center of the Milky Way (25,000 light years from Earth) They are very different from the only filaments that were known until now and that were discovered in 1984. The first filaments, found by Farhad Yusef-Zadeh of Northwestern University, were gigantic and one-dimensional and hung vertically near Sagittarius A*. The new filaments are horizontal, much shorter and located radially, like the spokes of a wheel.

An international team of astrophysicists has discovered them hidden in the center of the Milky Way, 25,000 light-years from Earth.

An international team of astrophysicists has discovered hidden filaments at the center of the Milky Way (25,000 light years from Earth), which are very different from the only filaments that were known until now and that were discovered in 1984.

The first filaments, found by Farhad Yusef-Zadeh of Northwestern University, were gigantic and one-dimensional and hung vertically near Sagittarius A*, our galaxy's central supermassive black hole.

The new filaments are horizontal, much shorter and located radially, like the spokes of a wheel. And although both populations have some similarity, they are very different and are believed to have different origins.

In addition, vertical filaments sweep the galaxy and rise up to 150 light-years high, and horizontal filaments look more like dots and dashes in Morse code, scoring only one side of Sagittarius A*.

An image of the Center of the Milky Way (EFE).

Details of the study have been published in "The Astrophysical Journal Letters".

"It was a surprise to suddenly find a new population of structures that seem to point in the direction of the black hole," Yusef-Zadeh said.

"We had to work hard to prove that we were not wrong. And we found that these filaments are not random, but seem to be linked to the outflow of our black hole," says the professor of physics and astronomy at Northwestern's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.

A long investigation

The finding comes after four decades of research.

After discovering vertical filaments in 1984, Yusef-Zadeh and his team discovered two gigantic radio emitting bubbles near Sagittarius A*.

Then, in a series of publications in 2022, Yusef-Zadeh revealed nearly 1,000 vertical filaments, which appeared in pairs and clusters, often stacked at equal distances or side by side like the strings of a harp.

Yusef-Zadeh believes the horizontal filaments are about 6 million years old.

Although both populations comprise one-dimensional filaments that can be seen with radio waves and appear to be linked to activities in the galactic center, their resemblance ends there.

A group of astrophysicists has discovered a strange object in the Milky Way that emits "huge bursts of energy" intermittently every eighteen minutes (EFE).

The vertical filaments are perpendicular to the galactic plane; The horizontals are parallel to the plane but point radially toward the center of the galaxy, where the black hole is located.

In addition, verticals are magnetic and relativistic, while horizontals appear to emit thermal radiation.

There are several hundred vertical filaments and only a few hundred horizontal filaments.

And the vertical filaments, which measure up to 150 light-years tall, far exceed the size of horizontal filaments, which are only 5 to 10 light-years long.

Vertical filaments also adorn the space around the galaxy's core; The horizontals appear to extend to only one side, pointing towards the black hole.

The work of this team has only just begun. Many mysteries remain to be clarified about the mechanisms and origin of the new finding.

EFE Agency.