Giant 'Space Tornadoes' Discovered Raging in Milky Way's Turbulent Heart
In the absolute omnishambles of the Milky Way galactic center, we've just found a new kind of turbulent structure.
Peering into the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ) that surrounds the galactic supermassive black hole, astronomers have identified long, thin filaments of gas, near outflows of material. Filaments have been identified around the galactic center previously, but these new ones are unlike any other filaments ever seen.
After puzzlement, then analysis, a team of astronomers led by Kai Yang of Shanghai Jiao Tong University has determined that they represent a never-before-seen mechanism for the dispersal of gas throughout the CMZ – a kind of cosmic tornado.
"When we checked the ALMA images showing the outflows, we noticed these long and narrow filaments spatially offset from any star-forming regions," Yang says. "Unlike any objects we know, these filaments really surprised us."
The CMZ is a region of clouds rich in dust and molecular gas that roils around the galactic nucleus. It measures up to 2,000 light-years across, and it's dense. It contains nearly 80 percent of all the dense gas in the galaxy, and around 5 percent of all the galaxy's molecular gas.
As you can imagine, all this densely packed material makes for a bit of a wild environment, with clouds slamming through space at up to 100 kilometers per second. Shock fronts and turbulence are common. Clouds form, break apart, and reform in an endless cycle.
It's not clear what drives this process, but the CMZ is kind of hard to study. Because the clouds therein are so dense, it can be a little tricky to peer into their midst. Yang and colleagues used the powerful Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile to try to shed some light on the dynamic processes at play in the CMZ.
They were specifically looking for traces of silicon monoxide, a gas whose presence is particularly useful in tracing and delineating shocks. They weren't expecting what they found, though: very long, narrow filaments traced out in silicon monoxide at a finer scale than other filaments found in the CMZ.
The research team named these structures "slim filaments," and set about analyzing them in greater detail. In addition to silicon monoxide, the slim filaments contain the complex organic molecules cyclopropenylidene, formaldehyde, cyanoacetylene, methanol, isocyanic acid, sulfur monoxide, and acetonitrile.
In addition, their velocity distributions are inconsistent with measurements of other kinds of filaments, and they are dominated by turbulent pressure. This suggests that the structures may be a little bit like tornadoes, or dust devils, and perform a similar role.
"Our research contributes to the fascinating Galactic Center landscape by uncovering these slim filaments as an important part of material circulation," says astronomer Xing Lu of Shanghai Astronomical Observatory in China.
"We can envision these as space tornadoes: they are violent streams of gas, they dissipate shortly, and they distribute materials into the environment efficiently."
Although how the slim filaments form is unclear, the researchers believe that shock plays a role in their genesis. Shocks generated by collisions in the CMZ may give rise to filaments of turbulence that heat complex molecules into their gas phase and release them into the interstellar medium.
As they cool, these molecules revert to dust, replenishing the CMZ and redistributing its material. If the filaments are as abundant throughout the CMZ as the researchers found them in their observation sample, they would explain a large part of the recycling rate of the region.
"We speculate that these slim filaments represent a distinct class from the dense gas filaments typically observed in nearby molecular clouds, and they may result from interactions between shocks and molecular clouds," the researchers write in their paper.
"Their eventual dissipation within 10,000 years may enrich silicon monoxide and several complex organic molecules in the interstellar medium, thus leading to the observed widespread emission of silicon monoxide and complex organic molecules in the CMZ."
The research has been published in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
First-Ever Images of Neptune's Eerie Glow Finally Reveal Missing Aurora
Toxic Mars Dust Could Pose Major Health Risks For Future Astronauts
Stunning Swirl in Europe's Skies Caused by Classified Space X Mission
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Astronomers discover baby planets taking their 1st steps in nearby stellar nursery (images)
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Astronomers may have caught the first stages of planets being born around infant stars. The discovery came about when a team of scientists studied 78 planet-forming, flattened clouds of gas and dust, or "protoplanetary disks," in the Ophiuchus star-forming region. This stellar nursery, also known as the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, is located around 460 light-years from Earth, making it the closest star-forming region to our solar system. The team discovered previously unseen rings, spirals and other substructures in the swirling, plate-like planet-forming clouds around a number of stars just a few hundred thousand years old. If that seems ancient, consider this: Our middle-aged star, the sun, is 4.6 billion years old. The team's findings suggest stars and planets evolve together in environments that are rich in gas and dust. Stars are born when overly dense regions in vast clouds of gas and dust called molecular clouds collapse under their own gravity. This collapse creates a protostar wrapped in a pre-natal envelope of material from which it continues to gather mass. This matter-harvesting continues until the star is sufficiently massive enough to trigger the fusion of hydrogen to helium at the heart of the star, the nuclear process that defines what a fully grown or main-sequence star end result is a young star surrounded by a flattened disk of gas and dust within which planets can begin to form. When planets begin to take shape in these disks, their gravitational influence can gather or eject materials. That process gives rise to substructures in the protoplanetary disk. However, the big question is: At what point in the evolution of planetary systems do these substructures begin to appear? That's a question astronomers have been attempting to answer using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an array of 66 antennas in northern Chile that work together to act as form a single telescope. In particular, two large programs conducted by ALMA, DSHARP and eDisk, have discovered intricate details of structures in protoplanetary disks. DSHARP found that such structures are common in the disks that surround 20 young stars under 1 million years of age. Meanwhile, eDisk studied younger protostars that are just between 10,000 and 100,000 years old and thus still in their matter-harvesting stage. This revealed that structures present around 1 million-year-old stars are absent around stars 10 and 100 times younger. That implies the characteristics of a protoplanetary disk are dependent on the age of its central star. The new study's team looked at stars with ages between those studied in the DSHARP and eDisk programs, turning to super-resolution imaging provided by public software called "Python module for Radio Interferometry Imaging with Sparse Modeling," or (PRIISM), and applied this to ALMA archival data. This allowed the researchers to obtain a resolution three times greater than what's provided by standard procedures for half of the imaged protoplanetary disks. The team's results were further bolstered by the fact their Ophiuchus sample was four times larger than what was used in the DSHARP and eDisk programs. The investigation revealed 27 of the 78 examined disks had ring or spiral structures, 15 of which had never been seen before. This revealed substructures form in disks that have widths 30 times the distance between Earth and the sun (30 astronomical units). This, in turn, implies that substructures form much earlier than previously thought — while such disks are still abundant with gas and dust. In other words, infant stars and planets seem to evolve together — at least, in the Ophiuchus stellar nursery. Related Stories: —The deadly atmosphere on Venus could help us find habitable worlds. Here's how. — Could nearby stars have habitable exoplanets? NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory hopes to find out — Astronomers discover origins of mysterious double hot Jupiter exoplanets: 'It is a dance of sorts' "These findings, bridging the gap between the eDisk and DSHARP projects, were enabled by the innovative imaging that allows for both achieving high resolution and a large number of samples," Ayumu Shoshi, team leader and a researcher at Kyushu University, said in a statement. "While these findings only pertain to the disks in Ophiuchus, future studies of other star-forming regions will reveal whether this tendency is universal." The team's research was published in The Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Scientists Edited Sperm to Bypass an Egg. The Result? A Mouse With Two Dads.
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Here's what you'll learn when you read this story: The first mice to be created from two fathers, a phenomenon known as androgenesis, have now produced healthy offspring for the first time. Researchers implanted two sperm in an egg with its nucleus removed and modified the sperm with epigenome editing, turning certain genes on and off. This process carries a high risk, but it could be used for human reproduction and saving endangered species in the future. Millions of years of evolution have determined how mammals reproduce, but if something doesn't occur in nature, it is not necessarily impossible. It could still be achieved in a lab. Mammalian reproduction usually needs one sperm and one oocyte (egg) to create a zygote that develops in the womb until it becomes a new organism. Embryogenesis and fetal development in mice and humans are similar, which is why mice are often used as prototypes for human experiments. Also like humans, mice, at least on their own, cannot create a viable zygote out of two eggs or two sperm. That is where genetic intervention comes in. Earlier this year, researcher Yanchang Wei at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China succeeded at creating mouse embryos from two sperm cells that were implanted into an egg after its nucleus had been removed. Giving the embryo a chance at survival meant making alterations to seven sites in the sperm DNA. The embryos grew inside surrogate mothers, but only two of over two hundred made it to adulthood. Those two mice have now reproduced successfully, showing that it is possible for at least one kind of mammal with two biological fathers to have healthy offspring of its own. 'Mammals are diploid creatures,' Wei said in a study recently published in PNAS. 'Every cell in their body contains two sets of chromosomes, one from the mother and one from the father. Mouse embryos with only paternal genomes can not develop to term, even being diploid (with two sets of chromosomes).' Behind what appears to be a miracle is a method known as epigenome editing. Because the epigenome is made up of chemical compounds that give the genome directions by modifying it, the process involves editing proteins, DNA and RNA at specific locations in the genome. There is no actual change to the genome made in epigenome editing, just a shift in which genes receive chemical signals to activate or inactivate them. There are some genes in sperm and eggs that are automatically switched on or off. Wei and his team used modified CRISPR proteins to turn on genes in the sperm cells that eggs would have normally had turned on. Androgenesis is rare among animals. While its does occur among some species of invertebrates, amphibians and fish. This phenomenon can happen when females produce eggs without a nucleus, which are then fertilized by males. The embryos will only inherit the genes of their father. In another type of androgenesis, both a sperm and egg form a zygote, but the genome of the female is eliminated. Males essentially use the eggs to clone themselves. It is thought that (with the exception of hermaphroditic organisms such as clams) androgenesis did not evolve much because the population would be dominated by male genes to the point of extinction. Creating mice from two mothers is easier in comparison. Known as parthenogenesis or 'virgin birth,' this phenomenon has been seen in reptiles, amphibians, insects, fish and even California condors. In 2004, a Japanese research team succeeded in genetically modifying and birthing the first fertile parthenogenic mouse, Kaguya. Whether genetically modified androgenesis or parthenogenesis will succeed in humans remains to be seen. The high risk is currently prohibitive. In the future, it might be a viable option, and could also be used to save critically endangered species which may only have a few individuals of one sex remaining. Never say 'impossible.' You Might Also Like The Do's and Don'ts of Using Painter's Tape The Best Portable BBQ Grills for Cooking Anywhere Can a Smart Watch Prolong Your Life?
New York Post
3 days ago
- New York Post
Astronomers make groundbreaking discovery about largest comet ever observed flying through deep space
A groundbreaking discovery was recently made about the largest comet ever observed hurtling toward the sun from the Oort Cloud in the outer reaches of our solar system. Astronomers recently got a close-up look at the comet, known as C/2014 UN271, flying through deep space with the powerful Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) radio telescope in Chile. The icy giant is 85 miles across and is more than 10 times the size of any known comet, according to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). The NRAO reported that astronomers found that new observations from the comet showed jets of carbon monoxide gas erupting out from the comet's solid icy core. Using the ALMA, the researchers found the comet in deep space near Neptune or about 17 times the distance between the Sun and Earth, according to a release from NRAO. Using the ALMA telescope's high sensitivity and resolution, the researchers were able to focus on the carbon monoxide and heat being emitted from the comet. Nathan Roth of American University and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, the lead author of the study, which was published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, discussed how this gives researchers insight into the workings of this frozen rock hurtling through space. 4 Astronomers discovered jets of carbon monoxide gas erupting out from the comet's solid icy core. NRAO/Melissa Weiss 4 The comet was spotted in deep space near Neptune. NASA Goddard 'These measurements give us a look at how this enormous, icy world works,' Roth said. 'We're seeing explosive outgassing patterns that raise new questions about how this comet will evolve as it continues its journey toward the inner solar system.' Using previous ALMA observations and these newest findings, researchers were able to measure the comet. They measured the thermal signal to find the comet's size and amount of dust surrounding its core. 4 Scientists hope the new data will give them a better understanding of the makeup of the solar system. AP 4 Researchers used the ALMA telescope to track the carbon monoxide and heat being emitted from the comet. Diogo Josí© – Researchers believe that as C/2014 UN271 gets closer to the sun, they will see more frozen gas begin to vaporize off the titan of a comet. This could possibly give researchers more information about the primitive makeup of this icy giant. The researchers also hope that this will give a better understanding of the makeup of the solar system.
