When you look on the Milky Approach via a strong telescope, you’ll discover that near the middle of the galaxy there are elongated filaments that appear to stipulate its spiral form. Scientists have a nickname for these buildings: “galactic bones.” Just lately, astronomers discovered that one of many Milky Approach’s bones is “fractured,” and so they consider they’ve now discovered a potential offender: a neutron star that will have collided with it.
In response to NASA, these bones are big elongated formations of energized particles that spiral alongside magnetic fields operating via the galaxy. The particles launch radio waves, and so are detectable utilizing radio telescopes.
Scientists have discovered a number of such bones within the galaxy, however some of the placing is named G359.13142-0.20005, also referred to as “the Snake.” It’s a 230-light-year-long filament that seems to have a fracture. It’s also one of many brightest. One of many first explanations was that some as but undetected physique had disturbed the filament.
A research by Harvard College, revealed within the journal Month-to-month Discover of the Royal Astronomical Society, got down to take a look at this speculation. The analysis workforce concerned discovered indicators of a pulsar, a neutron star spinning at excessive pace, in the identical area because the damaged bone. These stars are extraordinarily dense, and are the small remnants left after the explosion of a supermassive star.
Utilizing NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, which orbits Earth, together with the MeerKAT telescope array in South Africa and the Very Giant Array in New Mexico—two techniques that detect radio waves—scientists discovered what seem like traces of a pulsar within the filament. Based mostly on knowledge from these observatories, they estimate that this pulsar impacted the bone at a pace of between 1,609,000 and three,218,000 kilometers per hour. The suspected collision is believed to have distorted the magnetic discipline of the bone, inflicting its radio sign to deform.
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Within the above picture offered by NASA, the Snake could be seen, and there’s a physique that seems to be interacting with the construction, in the midst of its size. It’s probably the aforementioned neutron star.
Pulsars are various variations of a neutron star the place, along with being compact objects, they rotate at excessive velocities and produce robust magnetic fields. For the time being there isn’t any instrument that may see them instantly as a consequence of their dimension and distance, however radio telescopes can detect the electromagnetic waves they emit and listen to them by changing these into sound.
This story initially appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.
