Hundreds Of Mysterious Magnetic Filaments In Space
The South African array of radiotelescopes MeerKAT observed part of the Milky Way’s center. The result is a unique radio image that discovered a large number of magnetic filaments. Some up to 150 light-years long.
Image by WikiImages from Pixabay
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Magnetic fields in space are many things but never boring. They come in various shapes and sizes, are part of incredible phenomena, but sadly... We rarely understand them. Farhad Yusef-Zadeh from the Northwestern University in America discovered completely mysterious magnetic filaments that pierce through the Milky Way back in the eighties.
These are almost one-dimensional magnetic fields that are up to 150 light-years long. Highly organized, often appearing in pairs or even groups while being nicely arranged almost like strings on a harp. In these filaments, electrons of cosmic radiation dance at speeds nearing the speed of light. But where do they come from? That remains a mystery.
Recently, the extremely sensitive radio telescope array MeerKAT had a look at it. Yusef-Zadeh and his colleagues needed three years of observing the sky and analyzing the data. 200 hours of observation during which the researchers watched different parts of the sky near the center of the Milky Way.
The result is a breathtaking image of the wildly turbulent center of the Milky Way that shows nearly a thousand of the previously mentioned magnetic filament hanging in space unexplained.
The number of discovered filaments is so high that we now know almost ten times more than before. This is a great opportunity to finally understand these magnetic filaments. And the image itself is art. Beautiful, filled with magnetic fields, and yet full of mystery.
What we do know at this point is that the magnetic fields have the same intensity along the whole filament. We also know that they aren't the remains of supernovae. A new image discovered a so far unknown remain of a supernova and its radio imprint is completely different from the filaments.
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