A space telescope peering into the Milky Way galaxy’s dusty core has spied a colossal twisted ribbon of supercooled material. Until now astronomers had only seen bits and pieces of the ribbon’s 600-light-year-wide superstructure, which resembles the symbol for infinity. Thermal images of cold dust in the Central Molecular Zone of the Milky Way, obtained with the far-infrared cameras on-board the Herschel satellite, reveal a 3x10^7 solar masses ring of dense and cold clouds orbiting the Galactic Center. "We have a new and exciting mystery on our hands, right at the center of our own galaxy," said astronomer Sergio Molinari of the Institute of Space Physics in a press release. Molinari and others describe the strange ribbon in an upcoming Astrophysical Journal Letters study available on arXiv.org. Astronomers previously studied gas-piercing infrared images of the Milky Way’s cloudy barred core, but they didn’t have photos with resolution high enough to discern the ribbon’s entire structure. Molinari and others found the ring by aiming the European Space Agency’s infrared Herschel Space Observatory towards the galactic center.
A space telescope peering into the Milky Way galaxy’s dusty core has spied a colossal twisted ribbon of supercooled material. Until now astronomers had only seen bits and pieces of the ribbon’s 600-light-year-wide superstructure, which resembles the symbol for infinity. Thermal images of cold dust in the Central Molecular Zone of the Milky Way, obtained with the far-infrared cameras on-board the Herschel satellite, reveal a 3x10^7 solar masses ring of dense and cold clouds orbiting the Galactic Center. "We have a new and exciting mystery on our hands, right at the center of our own galaxy," said astronomer Sergio Molinari of the Institute of Space Physics in a press release. Molinari and others describe the strange ribbon in an upcoming Astrophysical Journal Letters study available on arXiv.org. Astronomers previously studied gas-piercing infrared images of the Milky Way’s cloudy barred core, but they didn’t have photos with resolution high enough to discern the ribbon’s entire structure. Molinari and others found the ring by aiming the European Space Agency’s infrared Herschel Space Observatory towards the galactic center.
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Using a simple toy-model, an elliptical shape having semi-major axes of 100 and 60 parsecs (325 by 200 light years) is deduced. The major axis of this 100-parsec ring is inclined by about 40 degrees with respect to the plane-of-the-sky and is oriented perpendicular to the major axes of the Galactic Bar.
The telescope’s images suggest the ring is a chilly 15 degrees Kelvin — warmer regions are blue while cooler regions are red — and has two segments that poke out of the galaxy’s pancake-like plain. Ground-based radio telescope data also hints that the ring is spinning around the core as one cohesive unit.
It is unclear why the center of the ring is not exactly at the center of our galaxy, which is believed to be around Sagittarius A*, where a black hole can be found. Some other gravitational force must be affecting it so far unknown.
For further information: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/07/milky-way-ribbon/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29&utm_content=Google+Reader or http://arxiv.org/abs/1105.5486
Photo: http://www.takayuki-astro.com/film_milkyway.html
