Scientists have just detected a massive object that’s 100 times larger than the Milky Way
Galaxy.
The astronomers are saying that the discovery was just “a stroke of luck”
But what is it?
And how was it discovered?
Is it dangerous or something to worry about?
Watch the entire video to learn more.
The mysteries of space have been intimidating scientists for quite a while now.
It has marvelous countless things which are hidden and are waiting for it to be discovered.
So much to be discovered, to learn and to find out as humans.
As humans we’re always so determined to find all there possibly is to find . Today,
we take a look at what scientists found out in space.
Astronomers have just found an absolute monster of a galaxy!
The largest radio galaxy ever, stretching at least 16 million light-years through space,
new research shows.
Lurking some 3 billion light-years away, Alcyoneus is a giant radio galaxy reaching 5 megaparsecs
into space.
That’s 16.3 million light-years long, and constitutes the largest known structure of
galactic origin.
The galaxy named Alcyoneus after the son of Ouranos, the Greek primordial god of the sky,
was discovered about 3 billion light-years from Earth by a “stroke of luck,” according
to a statement from Leiden University in the Netherlands.
Radio galaxies house supermassive black holes at their cores.
As matter falls into the black hole, it releases energy in the form of two radio jets from
opposite sides from the galaxy’s center, also known as an active galactic nucleus.
Using data from the Low-Frequency Array network of radio telescopes located across Europe,
researchers detected two massive plasma plumes emitted from a seemingly normal supermassive
black hole at the center of the galaxy.
Measuring at least 16 million light-years in length, these two jet streams stretch more
than one hundred Milky Ways in diameter, representing the largest known structure of galactic origin,
according to the statement.
The material blasted into space by these two jet streams includes the building blocks for
new star formation.
Traveling at almost the speed of light, this material heats up and dissolves into plasma,
which glows in radio light that LOFAR is able to detect.
Astronomers using the radio telescopes were previously unable to detect Alcyoneus because
the plumes are relatively faint.
The researchers reprocessed existing images of the galaxy, revealing subtle, new patterns
that alerted the team to the massive galactic structure.
While radio jets have been detected in many galaxies, including the Milky Way, the researchers
are unsure how Alcyoneus grew to be so massive.
At first, they thought it could be due to an usually large black hole, an exorbitant
amount of stardust or incredibly powerful jet streams.
However, these features appear relatively normal compared to other radio galaxies, according
to the statement.
The discovery highlights our poor understanding of these colossi, and what drives their incredible
growth.
But it could provide a pathway to better understanding, not just of giant radio galaxies, but the
intergalactic medium that drifts in the yawning voids of space.
Giant radio galaxies are yet another mystery in a Universe full of mysteries.
They consist of a host galaxy (that’s the cluster of stars orbiting a galactic nucleus
containing a supermassive black hole), as well as colossal jets and lobes that erupt
forth from the galactic center.
These jets and lobes, interacting with the intergalactic medium, act as a synchrotron
to accelerate electrons that produce radio emission.
We are pretty sure we know what produces the jets: an active supermassive black hole at
the galactic center.
We refer to a black hole as ‘active’ when it’s guzzling down material from a giant
disk of material around it.
Not all the material in the accretion disk swirling into an active black hole inevitably
ends up beyond the event horizon.
A small fraction of it somehow gets funneled from the inner region of the accretion disk
to the poles, where it is blasted into space in the form of jets of ionized plasma, at
speeds a significant percentage of the speed of light.
These jets can travel enormous distances before spreading out into giant radio-emitting lobes.
This process is pretty normal.
Even the Milky Way has radio lobes.
What we don’t really have a good handle on is why, in some galaxies, they grow to
absolutely gargantuan sizes, on megaparsec scales.
These are called giant radio galaxies, and the most extreme examples could be key to
understanding what drives their growth.
“If there exist host galaxy characteristics that are an important cause for giant radio
galaxy growth, then the hosts of the largest giant radio galaxies are likely to possess
them,” the researchers, led by astronomer Martijn Oei of Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands,
explain in their preprint paper, which has been accepted for publication in Astronomy
& Astrophysics is available on arXiv.org.
“Similarly, if there exist particular large-scale environments that are highly conducive to
giant radio galaxy growth, then the largest giant radio galaxies are likely to reside
in them.”
The team went looking for these outliers in data collected by the Low Frequency Array
in Europe, an interferometric network consisting of around 20,000 radio antennas, distributed
throughout 52 locations across Europe.
They reprocessed the data through a new pipeline, removing compact radio sources that might
interfere with detections of diffuse radio lobes, and correcting for optical distortion.
The resulting images, they say, represent the most sensitive search ever conducted for
radio galaxy lobes.
Then, they used the best pattern recognition tool available for locating their target:
their own eyes.
This is how they found Alcyoneus, spewing forth from a galaxy a few billion light-years
away.
“We have discovered what is in projection the largest known structure made by a single
galaxy – a giant radio galaxy with a projected proper length [of] 4.99 ± 0.04 megaparsecs.
The true proper length is at least … 5.04 ± 0.05 megaparsecs,” they write.
Once they had measured the lobes, the researchers used the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to try to
understand the host galaxy.
They found that it’s a fairly normal elliptical galaxy, embedded in a filament of the cosmic
web, clocking in at around 240 billion times the mass of the Sun, with a supermassive black
hole at its center around 400 million times the mass of the Sun.
Both of these parameters are actually at the low end for giant radio galaxies, which could
provide some clues as to what drives the growth of radio lobes.
“Beyond geometry, Alcyoneus and its host are suspiciously ordinary: the total low-frequency
luminosity density, stellar mass and supermassive black hole mass are all lower than, though
similar to, those of the medial giant radio galaxies,” the researchers write.
“Thus, very massive galaxies or central black holes are not necessary to grow large
giants, and, if the observed state is representative of the source over its lifetime, neither is
high radio power.”
It could be that Alcyoneus is sitting in a region of space that is lower density than
average, which could enable its expansion – or that interaction with the cosmic web
plays a role in the object’s growth.
Whatever is behind it, though, the researchers believe that Alcyoneus is still growing even
bigger, far away in the cosmic dark.
Alcyoneus may offer new clues about the structure of our universe, also known as the cosmic
web, which is believed to connect all galaxies.
This complex network is composed of filaments of clustered galaxies, separated by giant
voids.
The intergalactic medium between galaxies may play a role in shaping the galaxy’s
massive plasma plumes.
Therefore, the researchers plan to further investigate Alcyoneus’ environment to see
if anything in its surroundings can explain its unusual growth, according to the statement.
Bottom line: Astronomers have discovered the largest radio galaxy yet.
It would take 100 Milky Way galaxies laid end to end to equal Alcyoneus and its jets.
The jets are so tenuous that astronomers can see subtle changes in them as they move through
the intergalactic medium.
Astronomers hope this subtle movement will help them understand the voids in the cosmic
web.
Will astronomers be able to detect changes?
Will they be able to understand the voids and all the mysteries around the cosmic web?
Also check on what Elon Musk REVEALED About The James Webb Telescope that is Totally Insane.