10 fresh and amazing discoveries related to the Milky Way galaxy

Our native galaxy is only the firstthe frontier of space exploration. This may seem commonplace, but the more scientists learn about it, the more surprising this system becomes. It has dark matter, strange signals, and many other newly discovered phenomena and phenomena. Although most of the new discoveries become examples for solving old scientific questions, some of them can tell us about completely new phenomena that we did not know about or even guessed about.

Today we’ll talk about the “top ten” of the most interesting and amazing miracles found inside the Milky Way.

Content

• 1 Apop
• 2 goblin
• 3 Dark Matter Hurricane
• 4 Mysterious Signal
• 5 Toxic space fat
• 6 rogue planet or star itself
• 7 Old wound
• 8 Dead Galaxy
• 9 Lost twin
• 10 Strange Thread

Apop

In 2018, astronomers announced the availability in oura unique system galaxy. It is located in the constellation of the Nagon, and is a triple star system consisting of two Wolf-Rayet stars and a supergiant. The scientific name is 2XMM J160050.7-514245. For simplicity, she was nicknamed Apop. The name comes from the name of a deity from Egyptian mythology - a huge serpent personifying evil and Chaos, the eternal enemy of the sun god Ra. What makes her unique is what, according to our theories, should happen after her stellar collapse.

When Wolf-Rayet class stars die, theyturn into supernovae and create very powerful gamma-ray emissions. The latter is the most powerful phenomenon of radiation of energetically charged particles in the Universe known to us and has never been previously observed inside the Milky Way. Such outbursts occur very rarely, but Apop offers good hope.

Visually Apop is defined as two stars, butthe lower, larger star is actually a Wolf - Rayet double star, consisting of two stars located very close to each other. The third star revolves around a binary star at a distance of about 1,700 astronomical units (250 billion km) with a circulation period exceeding 10 thousand years. The system is surrounded by clouds of stellar wind and cosmic dust. The wind speed here reaches 12,000,000 km / h, and the rotation speed of cosmic dust is 2,000,000 km / h.

Wolf Stars - Rapidly Rotating Paradisecould theoretically produce a gamma-ray burst during a supernova explosion. The 2XMM J160050.7-514245 star system fits this description and can give rise to the emission of two gamma-jets from its poles. The potential gamma-ray burst from this system is not life-threatening on Earth, since the angle of deviation of the axis of rotation of the stellar system relative to the Earth is approximately 30 degrees. But the sight will be unforgettable.

Goblin

Another treasure that astronomers are chasingis the so-called "Ninth Planet." It is very large and may be located somewhere outside the solar system. At least according to assumptions. Nevertheless, scientists have discovered signs that may indicate the existence of this world.

In 2018, astronomers discovered thatin the outer part of the solar system, the transneptunian object is exposed to a very strange gravitational influence of an unknown source. This source, scientists say, may be the Ninth Planet. Since the discovery happened shortly before Halloween, and the primary designation of the object contained the letters “TG”, scientists called the object Goblin (“The Goblin”).

If you do not take into account an interesting name andhints of the Ninth Planet, the object itself is of great interest. Of particular interest is its orbit around the sun. She is very elongated. According to scientists, it takes about 40,000 years to complete a complete revolution around our luminary for a Goblin. Since the object is located at the farthest reaches of the solar system, we can only see 1 percent of its total orbit.

Opening the facility allows us to replenish luggageknowledge of the external boundaries of our system. The goblin is only the third known object, after Sedna and 2012 VP113, living in these surroundings. And the last two, like Goblin, is also affected by some powerful source of gravity. Probably the very "Ninth Planet."

Dark Matter Hurricane

In 2017, scientists found that to oursomething big is moving on the planet. Further analysis of the data showed that we are not talking about an asteroid. This is a much larger facility. More precisely, the whole phenomenon. As it turned out, scientists saw something like a ribbon of stars racing through the region of the Milky Way, in which our solar system is located.

Called "S1 stream" streamrepresents the remains of a dwarf galaxy torn to shreds by the Milky Way. It does not represent a danger to us, but scientists have found that it contains not only stars. Physicists believe that S1 may contain a large supply of dark matter, which once held together a dwarf galaxy.

Despite the fact that the stream was nicknamed “Hurricaneof dark matter ”, his discovery greatly pleased scientists. Current technology does not allow us to see dark matter. Moreover, we do not know what it is. Nevertheless, we know that it exists. It acts on all objects in space and this is just what is visible very well. There is a possibility that when the dark matter of the hurricane meets the local dark matter, the latter may experience a surge. Receiving the signal of this burst may be the first physical measurement of dark matter. In this case, we will finally be able to prove its existence.

Mysterious signal

Scientists have been arguing for a long time thatcauses massive emissions of gamma radiation from the galactic center of the Milky Way - the so-called galactic bulge. According to most assumptions, the source of these emissions may be dark matter. Emissions are allegedly related to the fact that dark matter particles (WIMPs) stumble upon each other or with ordinary matter. This is indeed hinted at by some of the findings. For example, the smoothness of the signals that scientists would expect from dark matter.

However, in 2018, an international team of researchers found evidence that not dark matter, a type of star formation near the center of the Milky Way, is responsible for gamma-ray emissions.

The basis for the study were takendata from the Fermi space telescope. Researchers saw that gamma rays actually reflect the distribution of stars near the center of the galaxy - they form in the shape of X, not a sphere, as you would expect if this were caused by the interactions of dark matter. By creating a model to recreate the processes, the team found that a more likely explanation would be a collection of millisecond pulsars (fast-moving neutron stars) - their combined emissions seem to merge to create a signal that was originally assigned to dark matter.

Toxic Space Fat

Outer space may seem perfectempty, but it is filled with electromagnetic radiation, soot and dust. In 2018, during the study, a team of specialists from Australia and Turkey decided to estimate the amount of another substance contained in the Milky Way - “space fat”.

Researchers found that only halfcarbon, a key element for life that was expected to be found in space, is present in pure form. The rest of the substance exists in two main chemical compounds: fat-like (aliphatic) and aromatic (like naphthalene balls).

In the laboratory, scientists simulated the synthesis process.organic molecules in a stream of carbon stars, which explains the presence of a plasma containing an element in a vacuum at low temperature. The material was then analyzed by several techniques. Using magnetic resonance and spectroscopy, scientists determined how strongly the structure absorbs the light of certain infrared waves, a marker of aliphatic carbon.

It turned out that for every million hydrogenatoms account for about 100 atoms of fatty hydrogen, or from 25% to 50% of all available matter. The Milky Way, therefore, contains nearly 11 billion trillion trillion tons of fatty substance. And all this mass is probably very dirty and toxic.

Now scientists want to estimate the concentrationaromatic carbon, which will require more complex research. By counting the amount of each form of substance, they will be able to determine how much element is available to create life.

Rogue planet or star itself

About 20 light-years awayvery strange object. When scientists first discovered it in 2016, they thought they had found a brown dwarf. These objects are also called "failed stars." They are larger in size than ordinary planets, but they cannot be called stars either. In their bowels, as in the bowels of real stars, thermonuclear reactions occur, but the participation of hydrogen in them is minimal.

A recent study of the object showed that itsclassification is complicated by another fact. SIMP J01365663 + 0933473 (the so-called object) is a space-body "rogue". In other words, it does not belong to any star system, but literally wanders alone in space. In addition, his age is estimated at about 200 million years, which does not allow him to be called a brown dwarf (too young).

Before us is a unique representative - a cross between a failed star and a planet. This big man is about 70 times more massive than Jupiter and has 200 times stronger magnetic field.
The presence of such a powerful magnetic field creates auroras in the upper layers of its atmosphere. By studying this object, scientists hope to kill two birds with one stone - to learn about magnetism and stars, and planets.

Old wound

Studying a detailed map of the galaxy, scientistsdiscovered something unusual - a strange cluster of stars exhibiting unusual behavior. In general, they formed a disk together with the other stars of the region, but not included in this group, and revolved around the galactic center. But besides this, they also revolved around each other. Visually, it looked like curls on a snail shell.

In 2018, scientists decided to “turn back the clock.” They took data on six million stars containing information about their position and speed, and tried using them and computer simulation to "deploy" the snail shell. The result showed that the unusual shape of the star cluster is most likely a peculiar galactic “scar”. About 300-900 million years ago, a very strong gravitational disturbance caused by an incomprehensible source "hit" the Milky Way and literally tore a small piece of the galaxy.

The main suspect, scientists have chosen the closestdwarf galaxy Sagittarius. Previous studies have shown that from about 200 million to 1 billion years ago, the galactic disk of Sagittarius could be affected by the galactic disk of the Milky Way. These results are fully consistent with what was observed in subsequent studies, which are mentioned above. Our galaxy, as it turned out, is very vindictive. The Milky Way is now stealing stars from Sagittarius and in about 100 million years it will destroy (or swallow) the galaxy that wounded it.

Dead galaxy

It may sound strange, but inside ourgalaxy is the corpse of another galaxy. In 2018, astronomers studied the motion of stars inside the Milky Way and in the course of this large-scale scientific work, it was discovered that approximately 33,000 stars do not belong to our galaxy.

Scientists can identify them by the movements of the stars.nature, thanks to this it was found that the discovered stars do not belong to the Milky Way, since their behavior was not like the other stars in neighboring systems. A more detailed analysis of 600 of these luminaries allowed researchers to find out the age and size of the galaxy to which they belonged, until they reached the Milky Way. Scientists named it Gaia Enceladus.

Astronomers claim our galaxy inthe past has repeatedly absorbed its dwarf neighbors. The same fate awaited the galaxy Gaia Enceladus. About 10 billion years ago, its size was 1/5 the size of the Milky Way, but this did not stop the latter from swallowing it whole.

Stars of a destroyed galaxy now make upmost of the halo of the Milky Way, and also form its thick disk, giving it a puffy shape. In other words, if this collision did not happen, our galaxy would look very different.

Lost twin

The local supercluster of galaxies contains twothe heavyweight — our Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy — as well as many dwarf satellite galaxies. Among them is the object M32. It "spins" next to Andromeda, but the composition and shape of this dwarf is so unusual that it is difficult to find a proper explanation. It is very compact and has practically no old stars, and it also has a very weak halo.

In 2018, astronomers found that in the localsuperclusters of galaxies once had a third very massive galaxy. In order to find out where to do it, the researchers turned their eyes to the Andromeda halo. As a result, it turned out that most of the stellar halo surrounding the Andromeda galaxy (M31) comes from one large galaxy M32p, which 2 billion years ago collided with the Andromeda galaxy, and the remnants of the dead galaxy now revolve around the Andromeda galaxy in the form of the satellite galaxy M32.

This discovery is an extra reminder ofthe future of our Milky Way. Our galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy must also collide. As a result of this, the fate of M32 awaits our Milky Way. Fortunately for us, this will happen no earlier than in 4 billion years.

Strange thread

Recently, several astronomical observatoriescountries have turned their telescopes to the same object - a black hole in the center of our galaxy. Thanks to this, scientists received the most detailed image of Sagittarius A * at the moment.

Sometimes radio telescopes capture an imagesome non-thermal radio filaments. They do not appear in the optical spectrum and no one knows what it is. One such thread appeared in the image of the black hole Sagittarius A *. Its length is about 2.3 light years, and, apparently, one of its ends falls into the very center of the black hole.

Seen so far is not amenable to explanation, butThere are several assumptions in this regard. According to one version put forward earlier by theorists, radion threads are capable of generating the so-called synchrotron radiation, which occurs when charged particles are accelerated by a magnetic field. However, in this case it is not clear - where do these charged particles come from in principle? Who "charged" them?

According to another assumption, threads are not whatother than a “fault” in space, the so-called topological defect, theoretically arising under the influence of a changing state of vacuum. According to some opinions, these filaments have a similar charge and mass with galactic filaments, which, like a web, cover the entire space of the Universe.

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