The vast structures are located in the middle of the Milky Way galaxy, which contains our solar system, and point toward the center of the galaxy’s black hole. Researchers say there are hundreds of them, each measuring 5-10 light years long, according to The Independent on June 2. The new discovery was published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters .
"It was a surprise to suddenly find a new population of structures that seemed to be pointing towards the black hole. I was really amazed to see these things. We had to do a lot of work to prove that we were not fooling ourselves. And we found that these structures were not random but seemed to be tied to the outflow of the black hole," said Professor Farhad Yusef-Zadeh, who led the research team.
By studying these structures, scientists can learn more about black holes in the Milky Way, according to Yusef-Zadeh, a professor of physics and astronomy at Northwestern University.
Starry sky image
Screenshot The Independent
Scientists have no conclusive explanation for the origin of the structures, and their existence remains largely a mystery. However, one potential explanation is that they were thrown out by some activity several million years ago, according to The Independent .
In the early 1980s, Professor Yusef-Zadeh found a collection of giant one-dimensional structures hanging across our galaxy, near Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole described by the media as the “gentle giant” at the center of the Milky Way.
Previously undiscovered structures like this, which are much shorter and horizontal, extend out from Sagittarius A*. They differ in many ways from previously discovered structures, which are much longer and more numerous, according to The Independent .
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