Scientists Discover Unexplained Barrier at Our Galaxy’s Center
Something mysterious is blocking cosmic rays in the Central Molecular Zone, according to a new study.
The center of our galaxy is an enigmatic place; shrouded in dust, we can’t see it in visible light, and numerous mysteries abound, from novel radio signals emanating from unknown sources to weird gamma glows.
Now, a new study has added another mystery to the pile: scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences have detected the presence of an unexplained barrier blocking cosmic rays at the Milky Way’s center.
What’s more, they don’t really know what it is, according to an open access paper published in Nature Communications on Tuesday.
Cosmic rays are particles like protons that are accelerated by energetic objects in the cosmos such as black holes or supernovae. Studying them is important for probing fundamental physics, and observations tell us that the Milky Way exists in a fairly homogenous “sea” of these cosmic rays.
The mysterious center of our galaxy is expected to be an important source of these highly energetic particles, so that’s where the scientists looked for fresh insights.
According to the new paper, scientists led by astronomer Xiaoyuan Huang analyzed observations from the Fermi Large Area Telescope and found strong evidence for a powerful accelerator at the galaxy’s center (quite possibly Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole that scientists know is there), but also something unexpected: the density of cosmic rays in what’s known as the central molecular zone (CMZ) was lower than the surrounding sea.
Something is blocking cosmic rays.
The CMZ is a region of space in the center of the Milky Way containing around 60 million solar masses worth of gas within what are known as molecular clouds.
According to the scientists, it may very well be something about these clouds that is creating the blocking effect.
“Several mechanisms can impede [cosmic ray] penetration into molecular clouds, such as the effect of magnetic field compression and the self-excited magnetohydrodynamic turbulence,” they write, which is a complicated way of saying it might have something to do with the clouds’ magnetic fields or galactic wind emanating from a source such as Sagittarius A*.
With more observations and future modeling, we may get a better idea of just what is going on at the center of our galaxy and the mechanisms behind the behavior of cosmic rays.
In turn, we may just glean some fundamental insight about our physical reality.
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Ken Hughes
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It doesn’t surprise me that cosmic rays are less dense near the galactic center, but then I do have a preconception. My belief is that the supermassive black hole at Sagittarius A* is much much more massive than current estimates show. So much so, that the time dilation field around it slows time down appreciably and slows the rate of all particle emissions from that zone. Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLe6llQSVks&t=1s
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Herb Rose
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Hi Ken,
Every object it the Milky Way is radiating gravitational fields, magnetic fields, and electric fields in all directions. This means these fields from every object in the galaxy converge and add together at the center of the galaxy. The “black hole” comes from the fields of the objects in the galaxy, not from an object in the center of the galaxy.
Herb.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Herb and PSI Readers,
Relative to this article and your comment, I direct your attentions to my comment at (https://principia-scientific.com/top-scientist-mocks-the-idea-that-covid-came-from-animals/)
If one takes the time to read this comment, it should be obvious that the image (of this article) seen by the Hubble S[ace Telescope is similar to the Crab Nebula to which I referred but could not show to any reade.
And I finally saw, with Herb’s help, what the light source is what allows astronomers to see the colors of the distant dust clouds which existed, maybe billions of year ago, to finally reach and be detected by the Hubble Space Telescope and its ‘camera’.
For with our naked eyes and an isolated location with minimum light pollution and a ‘cloudless’ sky during a new moon phase, we can can see the faint, continuous, uniform white light we term the MILKY WAY. Sometimes, the obvious can be the most difficult to see!!!
But to understand the colors of the Hubble Telescope images, one must be familiar with the light scattering theory taught by Richard Feynman. (The Feynman Lectures On Physics. Vol I, Chapter 32-5 Scattering of Light)
Have a good day, Jerry
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Herb and PSI Readers,
Here is a link (https://principia-scientific.com/the-corvallis-or-uscrn-site-a-natural-laboratory-part-three/) to save save you some time and effort relative to Feynman’s light scattering explanations.
Have a good day, Jerry
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very old white guy
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and this will effect the price of food, clothes and housing, in what way?
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