Milky Way Now Has Thousands Of Stunning Magnetic Threads Like A 'Modern Art', Scientists Say

Scientists said hundreds of unexplained strands have been discovered near the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) used a MeerKAT telescope picture to catch them.

The Milky Way began to emerge soon after the Big Bang explosion, which occurred 13.8 billion years ago and marked the beginning of the cosmos.

The paper, "Statistical Properties of the Population of the Galactic Center Filaments: The Spectral Index and Equipartition Magnetic Field," was accepted to The Astrophysical Journal Letters and was published on arxriv.org.

Milky Way Panorama Reveals Modern Art

Star explosions, stellar nurseries, and supernova graveyards all left colorful streaks on the image. Still, most notably, the image revealed 10 times more confusing threads than before.

Farhad Yusef-Zadeh, a Northwestern University astrophysicist and primary author of the article, described it as "modern art." In a statement, Yusef-Zadeh said these visuals are rich and gorgeous, and its mystery adds to the intrigue.

Because the original, sparser collection of filaments was too tiny to make any clear conclusions about their origin and purpose, he called the newer image a "watershed in expanding our knowledge of these structures."

Milky Way: Examining A Giant Universe

Yusef-team Zadeh's spent three years surveying the sky and 200 hours using the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory's Meerkat telescope to acquire exact measurements of 20 distinct areas.

The researchers then put the pieces together and removed the backdrop to isolate the magnetic filaments. As a result, the captivating mosaic image, which resembles a Jackson Pollock painting, was created.

Ian Heywood, an astronomer at Oxford University and research co-author, said per EarthSky that he spent a lot of time staring at it while working on the photograph.

WION News said radio-emitting magnetized threads are the image's very linear characteristics. Since their discovery over 35 years ago, these extraordinary formations, which may be up to 100 light-years long, have eluded a clear explanation for their origin.

Magnetic Strands Found

Yusef-Zadeh and his colleagues are doing a population analysis to see what the cosmic spaghetti threads have in common and where they differ now that they have an ocean of mysterious Milky Way filaments to study.

So far, the team has concluded that the magnetic fields of the strands are magnified as you move through them and that their radio emissions vary. They believe the shards came from a black hole that formerly lurked at the heart of our galaxy or a huge radio-emitting bubble, such as one identified in 2019.

According to CNet, the team said they'll keep looking for solutions in the future.

Yusef-Zadeh stated that they were getting closer to a complete understanding. On the other hand, science is a sequence of incremental advances at several levels. The researchers hoped to figure out what was going on, but further observations and theoretical analysis were required. It takes time to fully comprehend complicated items.

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