Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/UMass/Q.D. Wang; Radio: NRF/SARAO/MeerKAT
AMHERST, Mass. - New research by University of Massachusetts Amherst astronomer Daniel Wang reveals, with unprecedented clarity, details of violent phenomena in the center of our galaxy. 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. 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 si
Threads of superheated gas and magnetic fields are weaving a tapestry of energy at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. A new image of this new cosmic masterpiece was made using a giant mosaic of data from NASA s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa.
The team, which includes Northwestern University astrophysicists, devised the mathematically driven sequence that lets stargazers drift around a cosmic nursery as shining stars begin to appear. STARFORGE (Star Formation in Gaseous Environments) is the computational foundation with which this gas cloud simulation is able to render the stirring episode, a heavenly event that’s 100 times bigger than previous attempts and replete with vivid colors.
Video of STARFORGE: The Anvil of Creation
“People have been simulating star formation for a couple decades now, but STARFORGE is a quantum leap in technology,” explained lead author Michael Grudić, a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern’s Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics, in a post on Northwestern Now. “Other models have only been able to simulate a tiny patch of the cloud where stars form not the entire cloud in high resolution. Without seeing the big picture, we miss a lot of factors th
Using AI to analyse images of the shape and light from galaxies, astronomers from University College London created a map of the invisible matter throughout the universe.