Hundreds of ‘short’ cosmic thread string structures (filament) of 5 to 10 light years in length have been observed around the massive black hole at the center of our galaxy, the US CNN broadcast and the British Daily Guardian reported.
Northwestern University astronomer Farhad Youssef-Zadeh’s research team reconfirmed the filamentary structure at the center of the galaxy based on data taken by the ‘MeerKAT’ radio telescope in South Africa, and the results were summarized in ‘Proceedings of the Astrophysical Journal’ (The Astrophysical Journal Letters).
| ▲ Image of the filament structure (thread) of the center of the Milky Way taken by the MeerKAT radio telescope from South Africa and analyzed by the Fasad Youssef-Zadeh research team at Northwestern University in the United States. |
The filamentous structure discovered this time is a thin, long string of gaseous light that extends radially towards the center of the galaxy in a direction parallel to the plane of the galaxy’s disc. It is 5 to 10 light years long, shorter than previously discovered filaments.
Youssef-Zadeh’s research team analyzed images taken over 200 hours around the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* located at the center of the Milky Way with the Meerkat telescope.
Initially, the research team wanted to take a closer look at the filamentous structure that Youssef-Zadeh had identified 40 years ago. The original filamentary structure was discovered in 1984, and about 1,000 of them are located perpendicular to the galactic plane in the center of the galaxy and are about 150 light years long.
However, when the research team removed the background and removed the noise from the image, a new filamentous structure was captured that appeared to travel parallel to the galactic plane and back to the center of the galaxy.
“(Initially) I was focused on understanding vertical filaments, so I didn’t notice horizontal structures,” Youssef-Zadeh said. .
“We had to do a lot of research to make sure we weren’t fooling ourselves,” he said.
The research team estimated that material ejected from the black hole Sagittarius A* around 6 million years ago collided with a nearby star or gas cloud, creating this horizontal filament structure, which caused it to be directed in a direction the black hole.
“The outflow from the black hole interacts with any object it encounters and distorts its shape. It is enough to blow everything in the same direction,” said Youssef-Zadeh. “We discovered it was linked to the leak of
The team hope that further study of the newly discovered filamentous structure will allow them to learn more about rotating black holes and the accretion discs, structures formed from material sucked into black holes.
Science Team press@jeonpa.co.kr
<저작권자 © 전파신문, 무단 전재 및 재배포 금지>
