Astronomers using the eROSITA X-ray telescope onboard the Spektrum-Roentgen-Gamma (SRG) observatory have detected X-ray-emitting bubbles that extend approximately 14,000 parsecs (45,662 light-years) above and below the central region of our Milky Way Galaxy.
This image from the eROSITA X-ray telescope shows the energetic Universe. Image credit: Jeremy Sanders, Hermann Brunner & the eSASS team / Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics / Eugene Churazov & Marat Gilfanov, IKI.
Launched in July 2019, eROSITA is a large-collecting-area and wide-field-of-view X-ray telescope.
Over the course of six months, from December 2019 to June 2020, it has completed a survey of the whole sky.
A preliminary analysis of the all-sky survey map indicated that more than one million X-ray sources were detected by eROSITA. This is comparable to, and may exceed, the total number of X-ray sources known before this telescope launched.