The Galactic Center of the Milky Way observed by the Chandra X-ray Observatory in Massachusetts
NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory on Thursday (May 27) revealed a stunning new image of the Milky Way galaxy, revealing how the heat and magnetic field lines of space have created a garland of colors.
The close-up photo depicts the billions of stars and countless black holes at the center of the galaxy, more than 26,000 light-years away. This is actually a composite image, with elements from three sources.
The subject of the image is from the Chandra X-ray Observatory in Massachusetts. It ties together observations from the orbiting telescope’s 370 separate sites and builds on the last 20 years of observations from Chandra.
Meanwhile, the MeerKAT radio (radio) telescope in South Africa also contributes to this map of X-rays from the center of the Milky Way, as described by Chandra.
In this way, the orange, green and purple X-rays combined with the gray radio data from MeerKAT have enabled Chandra’s high-energy field of view to be expanded.
A press release accompanying the images says, “Imaging activity is farther out than before in the galactic plane, above and below the disk where most of the stars in the Milky Way are located.”
In this press release, a line shown at the bottom is highlighted as “particularly intriguing.” The line, which consists of intertwined X-ray and radio emissions, is “perpendicular to the galactic plane and about 20 light years long, but only a hundredth of its width.”
Daniel Wang, a professor of astronomy in the School of Natural Sciences at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, says the X-rays and radio waves are intertwined in a process called “magnetic reconnection. magnetic reconnection, a physical process that occurs in highly conductive plasma in which magnetic topography is redistributed while magnetic energy is converted to kinetic, thermal and accelerated particles, is “bound by a thin band of magnetic field.
This process is similar to when energetic protons leave the sun and are pulled (or guided) by the strong solar magnetic field.
In an email to Fox News on Friday (28), Wang said: “What we see in the picture is an intense or high-energy ecosystem in the heart of our galaxy. There are a lot of supernova remnants, black holes and neutron stars there. Each X-ray spot or point represents a source of energy, most of which is in the center (of the galaxy).”
Wang’s work on this study will be published in the June issue of Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS). It shows large puffs of hot gas that may be caused by supernova explosions and recent “magnetic reconnection” heating. The heat spreads about 700 light-years above and below the galactic plane.
The Chandra Observatory notes that “magnetic reconnection” events are “not usually energetic enough to be detected in X-rays” but may play an important role in heating the gas between stars, accelerating particles to produce cosmic rays and helping to trigger star birth.
“The images show that magnetic lines of force tend to occur at the outer boundaries of large plumes of hot gas. This suggests that the gas in the plumes is driving magnetic fields, and that these magnetic fields collide to create the magnetic lines of force.” The press release said.
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