Extremely vast, magnetic filaments blazing in radio signals have been spotted emanating from neighboring galaxies for the first time. They are no longer limited to the Milky Way and the variety of conditions in which they may be located in helping scientists to narrow down the principles that cause them.
In early January, Farhad Yusuf-Zadeh of Northwestern University in the United States discovered the Milky Way's filaments in the 1980s and has been studying them ever since. They researched individual filaments for quite a long period with a myopic vision, says Northwestern University astronomer Farhad Yusef-Zadeh, who discovered the filaments, as stated in the institute's press release.
There are two plausible explanations, according to Yusuf-Zadeh. The first is the interplay of galactic winds and massive clouds, while the latter is turbulence inside weak magnetic fields caused by galaxies moving. Astrophysicists know a lot about filaments in the local Galactic Center, but now filaments from other galaxies are showing up as a brand-new population of extragalactic threads, as per Yusuf-Zadeh.
Milky Way's Distant Cousins
Despite their mere myriad surroundings, the fundamental physical mechanics of both filament inhabitants are identical. The objects are related, but the filaments from outside the Milky Way were older, distant cousins - and by distant, it means very far, particularly in time and space.
To date, over 1,000 of the filaments have been identified in the Milky Way, at altitudes of up to 150 light-years in distance and hanging in curiously tidy and organized formations like harp strings, most recently courtesy of the MeerKAT radio telescope from South Africa.
The telescope's sensitive views of the galactic core, which penetrated through the dense dust and gas that obscured most of what was previously known, enhanced the number of threads known by a factor of 10. These radio studies also revealed that cosmic ray electrons are whirling about in magnetic fields near the speed of light, and also that magnetic fields are magnified over the whole extent of all the filaments.
It was going to be difficult to figure out why they were there, simply silently hanging out at the galactic center, without additional knowledge. More filaments have been discovered in four separate galaxy clusters ranging in distance from 163 million to 652 million light-years distant. The research result were reported in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Filaments' Enormous Range
Yusuf-Zadeh added that following the research threads inside our own Galactic Center over all these years, he was quite pleased to witness these extraordinarily beautiful formations. Because they discovered comparable filaments everywhere in the Galaxy, it suggests that something more general is going on.
The newly found filaments outside the Milky Way differ from our galaxy's thread-like formations in several significant ways. As reported by Science Alert, they are related to radio galaxies' jets and lobes, which are massive structures that erupt from the galactic core and span enormous ranges on either edge of the galactic plane. The filaments that stretch from these kinds of jets and regions are also substantially bigger - between 100 and even 1,000 times larger - than the structures found in the Milky Way's core.
Yusuf-Zadeh stated that some of them have incredible lengths of up to 200 kiloparsecs. That is around four to five times the depth of our complete Milky Way galaxy. The amusing part there is the distance the electron can stay connected. It would take 700,000 years for an electron to move at the speed of light down the length of the filament. They also do not move at the speed of light.
They're also older, with lesser magnetic fields. They also stretch out into cosmic space, frequently perpendicularly to the jets. The filaments of the Milky Way appear to be oriented upon that galactic disk.
Ancient Galactic Threads
On the contrary side, the parallels are striking. The length-to-width ratio of galactic but also extragalactic filaments is the same, as is the cosmic ray transmission. If the same process generates all of the filaments, it might be something that functions on several scales.
Winds might be one of these mechanisms. Galactic winds may be generated by intense supermassive black holes or rampant star formation, and they can just outside into intergalactic space. These winds might press against the thin clouds of gas and dust that float through interplanetary and intergalactic space, causing the material to clump together and form filamentary structures.
Another option indicated by simulations was volatility in the medium caused by gravitational perturbations. This turbulence can cause eddies mostly in the intergalactic medium, which can snare, fold, and eventually stretch outside into filaments with high magnetic fields. It is not a final answer - yet. Scientists don't even know if both types of filaments are caused by the same process, or if radically distinct occurrences produce structures that appear uncannily similar.
Yusuf-Zadeh mentioned that all of the filaments beyond our galaxy are quite ancient. In his opinion, he believed that they are virtually from a different epoch of the Universe, yet they are indicating to the residents of the Milky Way that the filaments have a similar beginning. This is extraordinary in his opinion.
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