Strange extragalactic strands mystify astronomers

April 22, 2020

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The universe is a stupendously vast and puzzling place. Millennia of scientific advances have incrementally increased our understanding of it, but every now and then, scientists still spy something shrouded in almost inexplicable mystery. Now such a puzzle has come in the form of filaments of electromagnetic radiation hundreds of thousands of light-years long—the likes of which have never before been seen.

Using the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa, astronomers were taking a peek at a bright galaxy near to the center of Norma, a merging galaxy cluster 230 million light-years from Earth. Called ESO 137-006, this particular galaxy shines extremely brightly in radio waves: A supermassive black hole at its heart shoots out twin jets of plasma that reach far beyond the edges of the galaxy’s rim. The charged particles in these jets, moving close to the speed of light, spin around magnetic fields and emit radio waves as they go. Such activity is spectacular but not at all out of the ordinary on cosmic scales.

MeerKAT’s keen radio eyes revealed an unexpected feature, however: titanic threads of radio emissions emerging from the maelstrom. Threads like these have been seen elsewhere, including within the center of our own galaxy. But the Milky Way’s own threads—themselves not fully understood—are many thousands of times smaller than the gargantuan ones emerging from ESO 137-006.

MeerKAT is already trying to find similarly gargantuan filaments in other radio galaxies. It could be that these threads are unique to ESO 137-006. Alternatively, they could be hiding in galaxies throughout the universe. Both outcomes would be a revelation, Smirnov says. But until we know either way, it is likely that astronomers will remain in the dark. “There’s definitely a lot of extra physics to be learned,” Cendes says.

Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-extragalactic-strands-mystify-astronomers/