Scientists Detected Mysterious 'Morse Code' In Milky Way's Center

Bright Side

Scientists have discovered a mysterious 'Morse Code' coming from the heart of our Milky Way galaxy. Deep in the galactic center, there's a cosmic signal that's blinking and beeping like an interstellar telegram. This isn't your average Morse Code - it's a supercharged version! These cosmic blips are caused by high-energy particles whirling around the galactic center like a cosmic dance party. Scientists are working round the clock to decipher this cosmic message. Is it a greeting or a secret from the depths of space? The possibilities are as endless as the stars!  Credit: A black hole: By EHT Collaboration - https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso..., https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...  #brightside   Animation is created by Bright Side. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/   Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD...   Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightside  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.... TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.of...   Stock materials (photos, footages and other): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me

Transcript

00:00 The Milky Way galaxy, where we live, looks like a ginormous pinwheel rotating in space.

00:06 It's a spiral galaxy that appeared around 14 billion years ago.

00:10 It's filled with a lot of stuff – stars, nebulae, which are clouds of dust and gas,

00:16 planets, asteroids, you and me and your parents and that messy kid down the street – you

00:21 get the idea.

00:23 And all these fan out from the center of the galaxy in long, spiraling arms.

00:27 A marvelous view!

00:29 The Milky Way is about 100,000 light-years across, and it takes our Sun, along with all

00:35 the Solar System, 250 million years to make one revolution around the center of our home

00:42 galaxy.

00:43 Wow, that's a big lap!

00:45 Look at the sky at night, and most stars you see there would be located in just one of

00:49 the Milky Way's arms.

00:51 Before telescopes were invented, people couldn't see stars clearly – they blurred together

00:56 into a single white streak stretching across the sky.

00:59 It looked like a river of milk, and that's how the name of our galaxy appeared.

01:04 Now let's get down to some recent and very exciting news.

01:08 An international team of scientists have discovered something they've never seen before hidden

01:13 in the center of the Milky Way.

01:15 It resembles Morse code.

01:17 Is that our galaxy trying to communicate with us?

01:21 In the early 1980s, astronomers discovered giant one-dimensional filaments dangling vertically

01:27 near Sagittarius A*.

01:29 That's our galaxy's central supermassive black hole.

01:33 And recently, a new kind of such filament has been found.

01:37 But they're much shorter and lie either horizontally or radially.

01:41 In other words, they're spreading out like spokes on a wheel, going away from the black

01:45 hole.

01:46 Interestingly, even though both types of filaments do have certain similarities, researchers

01:52 believe they most likely have different origins.

01:55 The vertical filaments stretch through the galaxy, towering up to 150 light-years high.

02:02 But the horizontal ones resemble the dashes and dots of Morse code.

02:07 Scientists were beyond excited when they made this discovery.

02:10 But they had to do a lot of research to make sure the structures indeed were what they

02:14 looked like.

02:15 They managed to confirm that the filaments were not random, but tied to the outflow of

02:20 the black hole.

02:21 Thanks to them, it became possible to study the spin of the black hole and the orientation

02:27 of its accretion disk, a rotating disk of matter formed around the black hole under

02:32 the influence of its immense gravitational force.

02:35 But let's have a closer look at the filaments we've been talking about.

02:39 There are around 1,000 vertical ones.

02:42 They appear in pairs and clusters and are often either equally spaced or side-by-side

02:48 like strings on a harp.

02:50 As for their horizontal counterparts, they seem to be around 6 million years old.

02:55 Both types of filaments are one-dimensional.

02:58 They can be viewed with radio waves.

03:00 And they seem to be tied to processes happening in the galactic center.

03:04 That's it.

03:05 The similarities end there.

03:07 The vertical filaments are perpendicular to the galactic plane.

03:11 The horizontal ones are parallel.

03:14 But at the same time, they point radially toward the center of the galaxy and the black

03:19 hole.

03:20 The vertical filaments are magnetic.

03:22 The horizontal ones seem to emit thermal radiation.

03:26 The vertical filaments contain particles moving at speeds very close to the speed of light.

03:31 The horizontal ones don't do it.

03:34 There are way more vertical filaments, and they're much larger than those stretching

03:38 horizontally – 150 light-years against 5-10 light-years at most.

03:43 In any case, the new discovery is still filled with tons of unknown things.

03:48 And astronomers are ready to start unraveling them.

03:52 But the filaments aren't the only unexpected and bizarre phenomenon in the Solar System.

03:57 Some time ago, Australian researchers discovered a weird spinning object in the Milky Way,

04:03 and it was unlike anything they'd seen before.

04:06 This object released massive bursts of radio energy three times every hour.

04:11 And even though there are other objects that switch on and off, for example, pulsars, such

04:16 frequent pulsation has never been observed before.

04:20 Some astronomers admitted that this discovery was pretty spooky, since no known object in

04:25 the sky could do it.

04:27 Research teams started working on the discovery and found out that the object is likely to

04:31 be 4,000 light-years away from Earth.

04:34 It's also super bright and has an incredibly strong magnetic field.

04:39 And still, if you do all the math – not me – you'll discover that it isn't

04:44 supposed to have enough power to produce such radio waves every 20 minutes.

04:49 The theories about the origin of this mysterious object vary.

04:53 Some experts claim it could be an ultra-long-period magnetar – whatever that is.

04:59 Others think it might be a white dwarf or the remnants of a collapsed star.

05:03 But it also might be something we've never heard about – an entirely new type of object.

05:09 But one thing is clear – astronomers managed to observe the signal across a wide range

05:14 of frequencies.

05:16 Which means it has a natural origin and isn't something artificial.

05:20 Now there's another mystery about the Milky Way.

05:23 Hey, what can I say, it's a mysterious place!

05:26 Around 15 years ago, astronomers launched the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.

05:32 Gammas are an incredibly high-energy form of light.

05:35 That's why, when you observe the sky through the gamma-ray telescope rather than with your

05:40 own eyes, the difference is dramatic.

05:43 So when astronomers started to use the telescope, they noticed that the center of our galaxy

05:48 emitted much more gamma radiation than, for example, its outskirts.

05:53 To put it simply, something is growing incredibly brightly right in the middle of the Milky

05:58 Way.

05:59 But the most perplexing thing is that no one has been able to find a plausible explanation

06:04 for this phenomenon for almost a decade.

06:07 Some astronomers suggested that the central region of the Milky Way was glowing with such

06:12 intensity because the dark matter was getting destroyed there.

06:16 While no one has ever observed dark matter annihilation, scientists have been hypothesizing

06:21 about this phenomenon for a long time.

06:24 Naturally, we wouldn't be able to see dark matter itself, but the process could be producing

06:29 the radiation the gamma-ray telescope has spotted.

06:33 That's how it could be happening.

06:35 If particles of dark matter collided, just like ordinary matter particles do in particle

06:40 accelerators, they would annihilate one another.

06:44 And as a result, they would burst into a shower of other particles, including the ones that

06:48 make up gamma rays.

06:50 But that's where the problem lies.

06:52 If the mystifying glow was created by the annihilation of dark matter, then gamma-ray

06:58 particles would get distributed evenly in space.

07:01 Instead, they gather together in clumps.

07:04 That's why, to the great disappointment of numerous supporters, the theory based on

07:09 the dark matter came up short.

07:11 There is an alternative explanation of why the Milky Way is glowing.

07:16 The culprit might be a group of millisecond pulsars, which are neutron stars spinning

07:21 incredibly fast.

07:23 And when I say fast, I mean about 1,000 times per second.

07:27 The theory that the glow is caused by millisecond pulsars is quite plausible.

07:32 As I mentioned before, the light coming from there is clumpy rather than smooth, and it

07:37 often happens when the source of light is one individual object, such as a pulsar.

07:43 Several studies have concluded that, due to the nature of the light, millisecond pulsars

07:47 are the best explanation for this phenomenon.

07:50 However, many scientists are still not persuaded.

07:54 Those stubborn folk want proof, right?

07:57 First of all, they state that the clumps of light may appear due to the interaction of

08:01 gas between stars in cosmic rays.

08:04 Besides, the pulsar theory has one more catch.

08:07 Why would so many of them be clustered together in a perfect sphere around the center of the

08:12 Milky Way?

08:13 Probably, the clusters of stars that orbit the Milky Way could've been disrupted by

08:18 the galaxy's gravity.

08:20 As a result, these "spilled" stars, including pulsars, later formed a spherical shell around

08:26 the center of the Milky Way.

08:29 But in fact, the whole picture looks like something completely different from both pulsars

08:34 and dark matter.

08:35 It leaves scientists with more questions than answers, and all that's left to do is a

08:40 lot more research and testing.

08:42 That's it for today, so hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like

08:47 and share it with your friends!

08:49 Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side of life!

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended