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  • 2 years ago
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!

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A black hole: By EHT Collaboration - https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso..., https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...

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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!
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