The Milky Way Has a Mysterious ‘Broken Bone’

For those who look on the Milky Way by way of 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.” Not too long ago, astronomers discovered that one of many Milky Means’s bones is “fractured,” they usually imagine they’ve now discovered a attainable offender: a neutron star that will have collided with it.

According to NASA, these bones are enormous elongated formations of energized particles that spiral alongside magnetic fields operating by way of 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 one of the crucial putting is named G359.13142-0.20005, often known 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 examine by Harvard College, printed within the journal Monthly Notice of the Royal Astronomical Society, got down to check 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 Large 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 assumed to have distorted the magnetic subject of the bone, inflicting its radio sign to deform.

The construction G359.13, with the fracture seen on its right-hand facet.

{Photograph}: NASA/CXC/Northwestern College

Within the above picture supplied by NASA, the Snake might be seen, and there’s a physique that seems to be interacting with the construction, in the course of its size. It’s presumably the aforementioned neutron star.

Pulsars are different variations of a neutron star the place, along with being compact objects, they rotate at excessive velocities and produce sturdy magnetic fields. In the mean time there isn’t a 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.