Astronomy - USA (2022-06)

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THE MILKY WAY’S HEARTSTRINGS

Nearly a thousand filaments lie at the center of our galaxy.

Mysterious threads glow

brightly in this view of the

Milky Way Galaxy, shown in

radio waves. The composite is a

mosaic of 20 images taken over

200 hours by the South African

Radio Astronomy Observatory’s

MeerKAT radio telescope array,

and was published Feb. 2 in The

Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The strange strands, which

were first discovered 35 years

ago, are thought to be generated

by cosmic-ray electrons moving

at nearly the speed of light

and interacting with magnetic

fields. Most similar features

elsewhere in the universe have a

source of acceleration, such as a

FIRST LIGHT

A month after its

December launch,

NASA’s Imaging X-ray

Polarimeter Explorer

(IXPE) returned its first

scientific image: the

supernova remnant

Cassiopeia A.

FULL-BODY SHOT

ESA and NASA’s

Solar Orbiter spotted

the largest solar

prominence ever

imaged in the same

frame as the Sun’s

full disk. The eruption

extended over 2 million

miles (3.5 million km)

into space.

LAST SUPPER

Astronomers have

made the first direct

observation of a white

dwarf consuming

planetary debris.

NASA’s Chandra X-ray

Observatory saw the

rocky objects rain

down on the stellar

remnant late last year.

HOT

BYTES

SNAPSHOT

QUANTUM GRAVITY

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE UNIVERSE THIS MONTH

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A

black hole. But these high-

energy filaments lack a

direct source. Researchers

say that the turbulence

and chaos at the Milky

Way’s center could gener-

ate the strands; another

possibility for their origin

is a compact, powerful

source that astronomers

have not yet identified.

— SAMANTHA HILL