NASA/California Institute of Technology/Solange V. Ramirez (NExScI; California Institute of Technology)
This view of our galaxy’s metropolitan center was captured by the Spitzer Space Telescope, providing an infrared view of the frenetic spectacle of the Milky Way’s center, revealing what’s behind the dust. “The Brick” is the dark blob in the center of the image that the more advanced James Webb Space Telescope is providing researchers with a detailed look at.
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The box-shaped cloud of opaque dust at the center of our galaxy has long puzzled scientists, but observations that reveal new details about its composition deepen the mystery and shed light on how stars form. What is known may be overturned.
This cloud was previously called a “brick” due to its visual impenetrability and rectangular appearance; Estimation It is said to be able to hold more than 100,000 times the mass of the Sun. And based on researchers’ current understanding of star formation, such dense clumps should be producing large numbers of massive new stars.
But that’s not the case.
Brick is largely dormant. And the latest observations made using the James Webb Space Telescope did not reveal any hidden young stars.
Instead, new Webb data reveals that the bricks aren’t just made up of gas. According to some sources, there is also far more frozen carbon monoxide scattered around than previously expected. study published on monday astrophysical journal. And even more ice is forming deep within the bricks.
The discovery could have a dramatic impact on how scientists analyze the region in the future. More carbon monoxide ice inside bricks could dramatically change the way researchers study and measure the dark cloud at the center of the Milky Way.
“We’re1701973202getting closer to understanding exactly what’s going on inside the brick and where the mass is,” said University of Florida astronomer Adam Ginsburg, lead author of the study. said. “But this raises more questions than it solves.”
These include questions about why and where carbon monoxide freezes into ice.
Other mysteries looming in this area remain unsolved as well. Why aren’t we seeing new star formation? Are the bricks not as dense as scientists once believed? And what are those strange ridges and filament-like features that appear in the bricks?
“We need to do more research to really see what’s going on,” Ginsburg said. “I would say we are now at the hypothesis stage, not at the conclusion stage.”
Ginsburg and his fellow researchers, including graduate students at the University of Florida, first obtained this new web data in September 2022.
That was a defining moment. As the most powerful space telescope ever built, Webb has the potential to provide never-before-seen insights into Brick. But Ginsburg and his team quickly realized that creating the data required a lot of work. The Webb telescope uses maps to orient itself and determine which direction it is facing by reference to where it is in relation to known stars.
The problem is that “there are so many stars in the center of the galaxy that it gets confusing,” Ginsberg said. So researchers had to spend months cleaning up the data and orienting it to correctly match existing maps of the sky.
Then I looked through the brick and noticed that the image from the web was the wrong color.
“Every star was a little too blue,” Ginsburg said. The researchers wondered if there was something wrong with the data.
But in the end, he said, the problem turned out to be their assumptions. Scientists didn’t expect there to be so much carbon monoxide ice, but they say it was responsible for the color change.
Dr. Natalie Butterfield, a research assistant at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory who was not involved in the study, said knowing the existence of ice could have far-reaching ramifications for all kinds of research into the center of the Milky Way. Ta.
Butterfield said understanding the existence of this carbon monoxide ice could forever change his research, including the study of supernovae and interstellar radiation. That could change the way scientists estimate the mass of all the clouds at the center of galaxies.
This carbon monoxide ice has some puzzling points. For example, this region is fairly warm, around 60 Kelvin (-351.67 degrees Fahrenheit), but carbon monoxide typically freezes at 20 Kelvin.
Presumably, the dust in the brick is much cooler than the gas, and the carbon monoxide surrounding the dust particles can become solid. Alternatively, the water could freeze, trapping carbon monoxide inside, Ginsberg said.
The answer is important.
All the ice in areas like Brick could give scientists new insights about our solar system and even our home planet.
For example, the ice and water present on Earth may have arrived here via comets. Therefore, where ice exists in the universe and how it forms can help researchers understand where these comets came from and how they collected the material they deposited.
And the big mystery is why there is a lack of star formation within the brick.
Scientists already know that new stars are formed from dust clouds and hydrogen molecules.But scientists cannot directly observe hydrogen molecules. Because inside a brick, or anywhere else in the universe, you can’t see it with a telescope.
But scientists also know that each hydrogen molecule can have a certain amount of carbon monoxide. And because carbon monoxide is visible, scientists can measure it as a proxy for determining how many hydrogen molecules are in a particular area.
Researchers use this method to measure molecular hydrogen. “I’ve been doing this for 50 years,” Ginsburg said.
But as Webb’s data revealed, they had always assumed that carbon monoxide was a gas, not solid ice. This discovery opens up a whole new can of worms, Ginsburg said.
Professor Ginsberg pointed out that for researchers to arrive at the right answer, it is important to understand the state of matter in which carbon monoxide is, whether it is a gas or a solid.
Every time new knowledge is gained about the brick and its structure, we learn more about why this cloud, which according to most views should be one of the most active star nurseries in the galaxy. We can better understand why opaque clouds do not produce stars.
“This is a really natural place for a new star,” Ginsburg said. “But we didn’t find that many. Only a handful.”
There are several possible answers that Ginsburg and other researchers would like to explore. Perhaps the bricks are more spread out and less compact than scientists once thought. Or maybe he’s still too young and his days as a star are waiting for him.
Ginsburg and Butterfield said these are questions that Webb can continue to help researchers answer.
“This is a truly impressive telescope,” Butterfield said. “I think this is just the first of many unique results from his JWST on the galactic center.”