Scientists and astronomers are always on the lookout for the next big thing in space
and this time they may have found what appears to be one of the biggest structures
ever to exist in the galaxy the massive alien megastructure has drawn all attention skyward
and with its discovery has sparked researchers to think that it might not be the last of its kind
welcome the Factnomenal and today we'll take a closer look at this
strange anomaly and why it's very makeup has left scientists scratching their heads
an incredible discovery was recently made by an international team led by the group of astronomers
from the Max Planck Institute of Astronomy otherwise known simply as mpia located in Germany
they were able to do so with some help from the European Space Agency's GAIA satellite
located 55,000 light years away from planet earth the megastructure is said to be some 16
trillion miles across researchers have estimated that the large filament could have been formed
13 billion years ago the megastructure stretches out at 3 900 light years long and light years
wide seeing as how one light year is equal to 9.44 trillion kilometers it sure is a beast of
a structure spread out across the milky way that however does bring up certain key questions where
exactly did this come from and if it's so huge how come we are just finding out about it now
the first clues about the structure were actually seen by the co-author Juan Soler
a year prior to the actual study being conducted and published on
20th December 2021 in the journal astronomy and astrophysics he fondly gave it the name
Maggie in honor of the longest river in his own home country of Colombia the rio Magdalena
or the Magdalena river which is quite fitting given how it stretches out across the milky way
in his own words he has stated that maggie was already recognizable in much earlier
evaluations and data but as we all know space being so large and full of secrets
we really can't jump to conclusions the observed structure of that magnitude could have been just
about anything as seen in the image taken with the help of the esa's gaia satellite the box marks
the exact location of the Maggie filament and the false color image of atomic hydrogen distribution
the entire study was led by Jonas Syed a phd student at the MPIA along with him was a diverse
team of researchers from the university of Vienna the Harvard Smithsonian center for astrophysics
the max Planck institute for radio astronomy university of Calgary university of Heidelberg
Argelunder institute for astronomy and even the Indian institute of science and nasa's jet
propulsion laboratory a true dream team studying the largest known structure in the milky way
it was only until the current study was conducted that we were able to prove beyond a doubt
that this was in fact a coherent structure the cloud was discovered by the team as part of the
hioh recombination line survey of the milky way which also goes by the fun acronym thor
we wonder if the norse god of thunder himself would deem this megastructure worthy
the survey that led to the discovery of maggie actually relies on all of the data that is
collected by the radio observatory called the jansky very large array in new mexico
here there is a constant scouring of the skies in hopes to find objects that lie outside of the main
plane of the milky way the flattened disc where most matter in the galaxy can actually be found
leader of the study jonas syed stated the location of this filament has contributed to the success
we don't know yet how it got there but the filament extends about 1600 light years below the
milky way plane upon further analysis it was found that the structure is a humongous hydrogen cloud
thanks to the filament being located in just the right spot outside the plane
it was much easier to spot than it normally would have been the radiation from the hydrogen
is clearly visible in this area which is how it was so easily detected owing to the fact that
there is hardly any real interference in that area due to the gas cloud being rather isolated
it also gave the researchers the advantage to calculate the velocity of the gas within maggie
what they found was actually quite surprising the research was based on data obtained by thor
an observation program that relies on the carl g jansky very large array or vla in new mexico with
the help of the vla centimeter wave radio dishes the project studies molecular cloud formation how
atomic hydrogen converts to molecular hydrogen the milky way's magnetic field and many other
areas of astronomy including star formation the process of how atomic hydrogen transitions to
molecular hydrogen is still a mystery which is what made this discovery all the more exciting
the largest known clouds of molecular gas generally measure around 800 light years
in length so take that in comparison to maggie and the impressive 3 900 light years that it
stretches out too it grabbed everyone's attention but all they needed to do was
somehow make sure that this was in fact a large singular structure that they were observing
the analysis conducted by the team showed that the matter in the filament had a mean velocity
of 54 kilometers which they found by measuring it against the rotation of the milky way disc
this meant that the radiation at a wavelength of 21 centimeters aka the hydrogen lime was visible
against the cosmic background thus making the structure discernible henrik buther the head of
thor and co-author of the study stated that the observations allowed the team to determine the
velocity of the hydrogen gas which allowed them to show that the velocities along the
filament barely differ since the gas seemed to be moving in the same direction and same speed
which confirmed one of their initial doubts that it is in fact a singular large structure and
not merely a cluster of multiple clouds sitting together side by side this was the confirmation
that they were looking for before they could declare it the largest megastructure yet
bringing back the hydrogen aspect that got everyone excited maggie is also garnering a
lot of attention for the fact that it's also made up of a rather unique form of hydrogen
hydrogen was formed about 380 000 years after the big bang took place and is by far the most
widespread substance in the entire universe and it is the main ingredient in the formation of stars
what else do we know we know hydrogen can be in two main forms
atomic hydrogen or molecular hydrogen the first being just single atoms of unbonded hydrogen
while the latter consists of two hydrogen atoms bonded together if you consider most of
the hydrogen clouds in space they mainly consist of molecular hydrogen but maggie is special the
large cloud structure appears to be made up of 92 percent atomic hydrogen only eight percent of
maggie's hydrogen is molecular and it seems to be concentrated into certain points along the cloud
researchers are particularly interested in this aspect of the megastructure and searching for
the reason behind its unusual makeup however there are certain concerns that have arisen
as to the origins of the cloud usually most stars are formed from clouds of molecular hydrogen that
become dense before collapsing under the force of gravity what scientists and researchers suspect is
that the molecular hydrogen clouds may have once been made of atomic hydrogen in the past but what
they cannot seem to explain is how the atomic hydrogen clouds transition into molecular clouds
studying this aspect of the maggie filament could bring us all closer to understanding the
formation of these megastructures and even finding more that could be lurking beyond our milky way
the discovery of the maggie filament was a great way to end the year 2021 on a positive exciting
note although its existence actually has resulted in a series of many questions it sure holds the
key to understanding structures of a similar nature jonas syed himself stated that there
are yet many questions that remain unanswered additional data is needed to give the team more
clues about the fraction of molecular gas a lot of which the team has already gathered and are
waiting to analyze further what's more researchers are convinced that this isn't just a one-of-a-kind
structure and it just happened to be positioned at just the right place that they were actually able
to detect and observe it what about the ones that we do not see or are currently unable to detect
well the good news is that several new space-based and ground-based observatories will soon become
operational and telescopes are going to be equipped to study filaments in the near future
the james webb telescope and radio surgery such as the square kilometer array will be at the
forefront of future studies to be carried out and will bring us closer to understanding the
early mysteries of our universe so what do you think what are your thoughts about the
maggie filament let us know in the comments don't forget to smash that like button and
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