Above and below the plane of the Milky Way , there are two enormous bubbles of hot gaseous state . Their formation is closely tie in to the center of our galaxy and the supermassive black hole that lays there . unexampled enquiry now sheds spark on the origin of clouds of gas detect within the bubble – with a surprise .
The general idea was that as the bubbles formed , material from the Milky Way ’s disk was launched into the vast structures , each extending 25,000 light - years from the coltsfoot . That is roughly how far the solar organisation is from the shopping mall of the Milky Way .
The work , published InNature Astronomy , showed that material did come from the disk , but also from the halo .
The Milky Way ’s halo is the spherical neighborhood surrounding its galaxies . Unlike the disc , which is pack with a lot of gaseous state and rubble organize in spiral arms , the halo is scarcely populated . The stars revolve there lean to be more primitive – or we could say pristine .
Because hotshot are responsible for for creating all the element in the Universe that are not the primordial hydrogen and atomic number 2 ( plus a bolt of lithium ) , by measuring the chemical composition of these clouds , the team established how contaminated they are . From there , they can possibly work out where they came from .
The value measured is called metallicity ( as astronomers call everything that is not hydrogen or He a “ alloy ” ) and the Fermi Bubbles ' mellow - velocity clouds have a broad range of a function of metallicity . Some have one - fifth of the metallicity seen in the Sun . This intend these clouds have been barely foul by heavier elements , so are unbelievable to develop in a part as active as the Milky Way ’s core .
However , others have over three clock time the metallicity seen in the Sun . Those definitely demand lots of stars becoming red giant , and even a few supernova , to spit these cloud of grueling elements . Hardly the stuff you would happen in the more metal - pathetic halo .
The origin of the clouds is not exactly clear . While the mechanism behind the Fermi Bubbles could play a role , the glory is also a place for the remaining bits of galaxy mergers to be . Some of the stars there used to be in other galaxy that the Milky Way eat eons ago .
[ h / t : ScienceNews ]
