The Milky Way's black hole may have erupted a giant air bubble

The Milky Way is blowing air bubbles into space. The twin bubbles of air that are blown up by gamma rays, the size of each is equivalent to the size of a small galaxy, located above and below the center of the Milky Way, like giant bells broken, according to discoveries by astronomers.

According to Douglas Finkbeiner, working at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the United States and colleagues analyzed data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope to find air bubbles that could have been created in the galaxy's core by an explosion when star formation took place long ago or by a past eruption from the supermassive black holes that had been there for a long time. The findings of Finkbeiner, published in the Astrophysical Journal issue on October 9, 2010.

Air bubbles are always covered by a high-energy gamma ray mist, according to Finkbeiner and colleagues in 2009, mainly due to high-speed electrons and protons interacting with light and gas. stars in the Milky Way created. But when Finkbeiner and his colleagues eliminated the fog from Fermi's telescope data, they happened to find two giant lobes.

Each bubble is about 25,000 light-years in diameter, or about a quarter of the diameter of the Milky Way, above and below the plane of the galaxy, as shown in this illustration.

Observing remotely on the plane of the galaxy, astronomers can easily see the sharp edges of the structures, but as close as possible to the plane, where gamma ray emission is not as luminous as radiating from the disk of the Milky Way, they find it difficult to determine if the feature is shaped like the hourglass of two connected bubbles, according to Gregory Dobler at the University of California, Santa Barbara, United States, who worked with Finkbeiner. Some geometric models are perceived as air bubbles like an hourglass while others see it more like an oval, according to Dobler.

Depending on when the bubble was created, each lobe could store as much as 100,000 times as much as a normal meteor, Finkbeiner said. Each bubble is about 25,000 light-years in diameter, about the length of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. In the selection of data captured by other telescopes, the suggestion of sketches of bubbles appearing as low-energy X-rays and microwaves, noted Finkbeiner.

Another source that could lead to the formation of air bubbles is a wave of millions of new young stars formed at the center of the galaxy millions of years ago . If the density is dense because a large number of giant stars are born at the same time, then the energy accumulated in the form of electrons or protons from explosions will have enough power to form. air bubbles and make them glow with gamma rays. However, the evidence suggests that the need for a large number of new stars to form at the same time to provide energy for the formation of air bubbles is not relevant to reality.

Finkbeiner agrees with the idea that the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy erupted, leading to the formation of bubbles. Currently, black holes do not radiate much radiation. But if a few million years ago, black holes would have enough energy to erupt matter and easily create bubbles. " This may be the first evidence " for a massive eruption of the supermassive black hole, Finkbeiner said.

Finkbeiner and colleagues, at first, came up with the scenario that it seemed that the black hole erupted, which would not have a special connection to the surrounding galaxies, which would have to be precisely erected perpendicular to the plane. of the Milky Way to create double bubbles. Finkbeiner said he now realized that the black hole erupting did not need a special bond, but nature would take most of the energy above and below the galaxy's disk, which has the lowest density of gas. and spray holes as easily as possible.

It is also possible, he said, that the best explanation turned out to be a combination of both sources. The supernova explosion from the formation of giant stars may have inflated air bubbles, while the subsequent active pores from the black holes may have formed a glowing bubble in gamma rays.

The theorist David Spergel, who works at Princeton University, thinks he suspects central black holes, as a source of energy larger than 4,000,000 solar, other galaxies known as wind holes and holes. Such powerful spray they expel heavy elements and gas from galaxies . New observations " show that our Milky Way can erupt matter ," he said.

When his team first began examining the data of the Fermi telescope, Finkbeiner noted, researchers hope to find signs of dark matter, invisible material that makes up most of the objects. in the universe. Some of the proposed types of dark matter will destroy each other when exposed, directly producing gamma rays. In that case, the new results may not change the conclusions of a group of publishers discovering possible dark matter within 100 light years at several galaxies' centers, according to Neal Weiner. Working at Neal Weiner University of New York University.

On the other hand, if dark matter produces gamma rays indirectly because it converts the first decaying waste into other particles like electrons, then confirms the signs of dark matter at the center of the galaxy. "It is possible to erupt ," Weiner said. That's because the problem of creating electrons can be thrown by dark matter from the center of the galaxy and into the giant bubble before having a chance to emit gamma rays, he suggested.