The centre of the Milky Way may be even more bizarre than astronomers thought. A team of researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Nanjing investigated a map of radioactive gamma rays – the highest energy form of light in the universe, which can arise when extremely high-speed particles called cosmic rays crash into ordinary matter – blasting in and around the centre of our galaxy.
The map revealed that something near the centre of the galaxy appears to be accelerating particles to mind-blowing speeds – very near the speed of light – and creating an abundance of cosmic rays and gamma rays just outside the galactic centre.
However, even as the galactic centre blows a constant storm of high-energy radiation into space, something near the Milky Way’s core prevents a large portion of cosmic rays from other parts of the universe from entering.
This story is from the Issue 125 edition of All About Space.
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This story is from the Issue 125 edition of All About Space.
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