NASA Shares Pic Of Milky Way Galaxy¡¯s Crowded Downtown 26,000 Light Years Away

NASA has shared a new breathtaking image of our galaxy, the Milky way and its violent and energetic ¡®downtown¡¯, according to a report by AP.

NASA

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This image is the result of 370 observations that were conducted over the past two decades by the Chandra X-ray Observatory that¡¯s orbiting in space, showcasing stars and innumerable blackholes at the centre of our galaxy.

The observatory was launched in 1999 and has been named after the Nobel Prize-winning Indian-American astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.

What also helped in bringing this image to life was the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa, which added some contrast to the image.

The discovery was made by Astronomer Daniel Wang of the University Massachusetts, Amherst. The discovery was made while he was working from home due to the ongoing pandemic.

Wang explained, ¡°What we see in the picture is a violent or energetic ecosystem in our galaxy's downtown. There are a lot of supernova remnants, black holes, and neutron stars there. Each X-ray dot or feature represents an energetic source, most of which are in the center.¡± The paper describing these results will appear in the June issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

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According to NASA, the new panorama of the Galactic Center expands Chandra¡¯s high-energy view farther above and below the plane of the galaxy compared to previous imaging campaigns. NASA highlights that one thread had x-ray and radio emission. It points perpendicular to the plane of the Milky Way and is a good 20 light-years long, however, surprisingly, it's only one-hundredth that size in width.

NASA

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NASA highlights that a detailed study of these threads teaches us more about the weather in the galactic space that astronomers have witnessed throughout the region.

This weather mostly reacts to unpredictable and at times, volatile phenomena like supernova explosions, close-quartered stars releasing hot gas and outbursts of matter from regions near our planet¡¯s supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A.