Although many would think we are more important than that, the Solar System is only a small part of the Milky Way galaxy. Our Sun is in an unusually hot and low-density place at the galactic edges, known among astronomers as the Local Bubble (Local Hot Bubble or LHB).
Since the Local Bubble is an anomaly, scientists have long been trying to understand why this region exists. Now, a team has mapped the bubble and revealed a strange asymmetry in the region’s shape and temperature, as well as a mysterious tunnel headed toward the constellation Centauri (Centaur), where Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, is located.
The results about the shape and temperature of the bubble support previous interpretations that the LHB was “excavated” by a supernova that expanded and heated the structure, while the tunnel suggests it is connected to another low-density bubble nearby, reports ScienceAlert.
The Local Bubble would be 1,000 light-years across
The Local Bubble would be 1,000 light-years across and a temperature of about 1 million Kelvin. Because the atoms are thinly spread, the huge temperature has no significant effect on the matter inside, which is good for us. However, there is one effect, an X-ray glow identified by astronomers many years ago.
This brings us to eROSITA, the Institute’s X-ray space telescope Max Planck for Extraterrestrial Physics. Led by astrophysicist Michael Yeung, a team of researchers used eROSITA to study the Local Bubble.
Thanks to previous studies, we know that the Local Bubble was most likely created by supernova explosions 14.4 billion years ago, and the position of the Solar System at the center of the bubble would just be a cosmic coincidence.
The data obtained with eROSITA showed that the bubble is expanding
The eROSITA telescope is positioned 1.5 million kilometers from Earth in a gravitationally stable location, being the first observatory of its kind to observe the X-ray sky outside our planet’s hydrogen halo, called the geocorona.
Data obtained with eROSITA showed that the bubble extends perpendicular to the galactic plane rather than in a parallel direction. This was to be expected, given that vertical directions offer less resistance than horizontal ones. Also, the measured asymmetric temperature gradient was consistent with the supernova theory for creating the bubble, with the possibility that stars may have exploded in our neighborhood up to a few million years ago.
“I didn’t know about the existence of an interstellar tunnel to Centaurus”
“We didn’t know about the existence of an interstellar tunnel to Centaurus, which creates a gap in the cold interstellar medium,” said astrophysicist Michael Freyberg of the Max Planck Institute.
It is not yet known what the tunnel leads to. There are several objects in its direction, including the Gum Nebula 12, another neighboring bubble, and several other molecular clouds.
It could also be an indication that the galaxy contains a connected network of hot bubbles and interstellar tunnels, an idea proposed in 1974, but without much evidence. We may begin to discover more about this alleged network from now on. The astronomers’ study was published in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
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Source: www.descopera.ro
