Strange structures at the center of our galaxy

2023-11-21 10:15:53

The powerful James Webb Space Telescope has taken its first detailed look at a sector of the dense center of our galaxy. It has revealed a landscape with a level of detail never before achieved. Thanks to this, it has revealed the existence of structures never seen before, some of which have caused a deep surprise in the astronomical community since they do not fit with any known cosmic process. For now, no one knows what they are.

The region in which the Webb telescope has looked is called Sagittarius C (Sgr C). In it, many stars are forming at the same time. The region is about 300 light-years from the supermassive black hole that resides in our Milky Way galaxy, Sagittarius A* (the “*” symbol is part of its name).

There has never been infrared data over this region with the level of resolution and sensitivity that we get with Webb, so many of the features observed are the first time we are seeing them,” explains Samuel Crowe, of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and member of the observation team.

Rubén Fedriani, from the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia in Spain, among others, has also worked on the study.

In addition to stars, protostars and typical concentrations of gas and dust, the observation made by Webb and analyzed by the research team reveals some extremely strange structures. Nothing like this had ever been seen before.

These mysterious structures are very elongated; They look like gigantic needles. Apparently, they point in many different directions, in a chaotic manner.

These needles are in a sector rich in ionized hydrogen.

This area of ​​the studied region contains quite a few needle-shaped structures that lack any uniform orientation. (Photo: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Samuel Crowe (University of Virginia))

Enlargement of a sector of the mysterious area, in which three of the strange needle-shaped structures are indicated with red dashed lines. (Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Samuel Crowe (University of Virginia))

The study’s authors plan to continue researching cosmic needles in hopes of unraveling their nature.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is the result of an international collaboration led by NASA, ESA and CSA, respectively the US, European and Canadian space agencies. (Source: NCYT from Amazings)