Tag: Galaxies

Posted on

Milky hourglass

Radio bubbles.
Milky hourglass light-years tall,
black hole at its neck.

Scientists observing the centre of our galaxy have discovered a pair of radio-emitting bubbles stretching hundreds of light-years above and below the central region of the Milky Way.

To find this vast hourglass structure, Heywood et al (2019) conducted observations at wavelengths near 23 cm – dense clouds of dust block visible light from the centre of the galaxy but this form of radio emission allows scientists to see past the clouds.

At the centre of the Milky Way is a supermassive black hole. Most of the time it’s relatively calm but it can flare up when especially large amounts of dust and gas fall into it, a possible explanation for the radio bubble formation. An alternative suggestion for how the bubbles were created is a “massive burst of star formation”, according to researcher William Cotton at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Virginia and one of the co-authors of the paper. Regardless of how they were formed, the bubbles were created a few million years ago.

Original research: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1532-5

Posted on

Universal truth by John Norwood

Photograph stitches
Global perspective binding
Universal truth

By John Norwood

This sciku was inspired by the first images of a black hole captured by astronomers using the Event Horizon Telescope. The black hole is found at the centre of the galaxy Messier 87, 55 million light years from earth and the image required collaboration between over 200 astronomers.

The poem is a reflection on how an image created by collating observations from various locations all over the earth gives us insight on the physical nature of the universe. 

Image of black hole Messier 87 captured by the Event Horizon Telescope. Credit: EHT Collaboration.

You can read more about the image and find references to the 6 papers here: https://eventhorizontelescope.org/

John Norwood is a Mechanical Engineer working with Carbon, Inc. to revolutionize how things are made. His interests include old houses, yoga, baking, cryptography, and bluegrass music. You can follow him on Twitter under the handle @pryoga

Enjoyed this sciku? Check out some of John’s other work: The answer is none, God may be defined, With enough data, Rivers cut corners, and Squeamish ossifrage.

Posted on

Petite galaxy

Petite galaxy,

so young and oxygen-poor.

What can you tell us?

 

As the first galaxies formed they were chemically simple, composed of elements (hydrogen and helium) made during the first 3 minutes of the universe’s existence following the big bang. Oxygen and other complex elements formed later leading to the creation of oxygen-rich galaxies throughout the universe (like the Milky Way). In order to understand primordial galaxies astronomers need to observe oxygen-poor galaxies but finding such galaxies close enough for observation is extremely difficult.

Now a study by Izotov et al (2017) has found the most metal-poor dwarf star-forming galaxy known to date (J0811+4730), which has 9% less oxygen than any galaxy discovered so far. Observations of the young galaxy J0811+4730 could provide information about those galaxies formed during the early period of the universe as well as insights into how the early universe became re-ionized.

Original research: https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stx2478