Vast Energies Produced at Milky Way’s Center
University of California, Los Angeles | 2019 Mar 20
Study co-authored by UCLA astronomer provides close look at what might be happening in other, more energetic galaxies
The center of our galaxy is a frenzy of activity. A behemoth black hole — 4 million times as massive as the sun — blasts out energy as it chows down on interstellar detritus while neighboring stars burst to life and subsequently explode.
Now, an international team of astronomers has discovered two exhaust channels — dubbed “galactic center chimneys” — that appear to funnel matter and energy away from the cosmic fireworks in the Milky Way’s center, about 28,000 light-years from Earth. ...
All galaxies are giant star-forming factories, but their productivity can vary widely — from one galaxy to the next and even over the course of each galaxy’s lifetime. One mechanism for throttling the rate of star production is the fountain of matter and energy whipped up by the heavyweight black hole that lurks at a galaxy’s center. ...
To better understand what becomes of that outflow of energy, Morris and his colleagues pointed the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton satellite, which detects cosmic X-rays, toward the center of the Milky Way. Because X-rays are emitted by extremely hot gas, they are especially useful for mapping energetic environments in space. ...
Giant 'Chimneys' Vent X-rays from Milky Way's Core
ESA | Space Science | Science & Technology | XMM-Newton | 2019 Mar 20
An X-ray chimney extending hundreds of parsecs above and below the Galactic Centre ~ G. Ponti et al
- Nature 567(7748):347 (21 Mar 2019) DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1009-6
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