NASA Releases Stunning New Pic of Milky Way s ‘Downtown It s a composite of 370 observations over the past two decades by the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory By Marcia Dunn •
Updated 4 mins ago
NASA has released a stunning new picture of our galaxy’s violent, super-energized “downtown.”
It s a composite of 370 observations over the past two decades by the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory, depicting billions of stars and countless black holes in the center, or heart, of the Milky Way. A radio telescope in South Africa also contributed to the image, for contrast. Download our mobile app for iOS or Android to get alerts for local breaking news and weather.
Astronomer Reveals Never-Before-Seen Detail of the Center of Our Galaxy
Powerful X-rays capable of penetrating obscuring fog near center.
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The images, published recently in
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, document an X-ray thread, G0.17-0.41, which hints at a previously unknown interstellar mechanism that may govern the energy flow and potentially the evolution of the Milky Way.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/UMass/Q.D. Wang; Radio: NRF/SARAO/MeerKAT)
“The galaxy is like an ecosystem,” says Wang, a professor in UMass Amherst’s astronomy department, whose findings are a result of more than two decades of research. “We know the centers of galaxies are where the action is and play an enormous role in their evolution.” And yet, whatever has happened in the center of our own galaxy is hard to study, despite its relative proximity to Earth, because, as Wang explains, it is obscured by a dense fog of gas and dust. Researchers s