Milky Way's Core Is 'Venting' - Viewed Via Chandra X-Ray Telescope - video Dailymotion

Space.com

Astronomers using the Chandra X-ray Telescope have discovered an "exhaust vent attached to a “chimney” of hot gas blowing away from the center of the Milky Way galaxy," according to the Chandra team.   Credit: NASA/CXC/A. Hobart

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00:00Music

00:03Visit Chandra's beautiful universe.

00:06Galactic Center Exhaust Vent

00:10Using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory,

00:13astronomers have located an exhaust vent attached to a chimney of hot gas

00:18blowing away from the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

00:22The chimney and vent are about 26,000 light-years from Earth.

00:27The chimney begins at the center of the galaxy

00:30and stands perpendicular to the Milky Way's spiral disk.

00:34The research team thinks that eruptions from the supermassive black hole

00:38at the Milky Way's center,

00:41called Sagittarius A-star, or Sag A-star for short,

00:45may have created this chimney and exhaust vent.

00:49Previously, other astronomers had found a structure in X-ray data

00:53from Chandra and XMM-Newton that seemed to be acting as a chimney,

00:58moving hot gas away from the center of the galaxy.

01:02This latest result shows this hot gas escaping into the rest of the galaxy.

01:07The new Chandra data reveals what astronomers think are the walls

01:11of a cylindrical tunnel that is pumping hot gas into the Milky Way,

01:15about 700 light-years away from Sag A-star.

01:19The researchers think this hot gas is being driven upwards

01:22when material gets dumped onto Sag A-star and causes eruptions.

01:26It's too early to tell just how often Sag A-star is being fed.

01:30Is this energy and heat stoked by a large amount of material

01:34being dumped onto Sag A-star at once,

01:36like a bunch of logs being dumped on a fire at once?

01:39Or does it come from multiple small loads being fed into the black hole,

01:43similar to kindling, being regularly tossed in?

01:47Future observations may provide answers.

01:50In the meantime, the discovery of this exhaust vent might point astronomers

01:55to the origin of two mysterious and much larger structures

01:59around the center of the Milky Way.

02:01The Fermi bubbles seen in gamma rays by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope

02:06and the e-Rosita bubbles detected by ESA's newest X-ray telescope.

02:11Both of these are pairs of structures

02:14extending thousands of light-years away from the center of the galaxy.

02:19Chandra continues to show how fascinating and complex

02:23the center of our Milky Way galaxy is.

Milky Way's Core Is 'Venting' - Viewed Via Chandra X-Ray Telescope

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