Above and below the plane of the Milky Way lie theFermi Bubbles , two orbs around 25,000 light - years across filled with red-hot gas and cosmic rays . They are a major informant of gamma rays , too . Within them , there is a bright spot , the Fermi Cocoon , a cryptic feature article with no clear source – until now . uranologist believe they have found the culprit , and it ’s a extragalactic nebula that is slow being destroyed by ours .
This little Galax urceolata is known as the Sagittarius Dwarf , a spheroidal galaxy that over a billion age has been " unspooled " by the Milky Way . The question of this low satellite around our galaxy has despoil it of most of its gas and many of its genius , an bit of galactic cannibalism .
The dwarf galaxy can be viewed right through the Fermi bubbles from the point of view of the Solar System and matches the position of the Fermi Cocoon , but without raw massive whiz being born and then going supernova , the gamma - ray emission is not easily explained . stargazer put forward two ideas : either the dwarf galaxy has a population ofmillisecond pulsarswaiting to be discovered or they were go steady the long - sought annihilation of dark issue .
Much of the Gamma-rays from the Fermi cocoon may be coming from the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy. Image credit: Crocker, Macias, Mackey, Krumholz, Ando, Horiuchi et al. (2022)
According to their paper write inNature Astronomy , the pulsar scenario is the most plausible . pulsar are a case of neutron star , the end product of certain massive ( but not too monolithic ) stars conk supernova . They rotate and give out pulses of radiation across many wavelengths including gamma rays . Millisecond pulsars , as the name intimate , spin on their axis every few milliseconds .
The Fermi bubbles were actually discover when researcher were looking for evidence thatdark thing , the suppositional substance that fence all galaxies , might possibly produce gamma rays . midget galaxies were considered an excellent target for such search , so this Modern oeuvre shift assumptions about that .
“ This is meaning because blue thing investigator have long conceive that an observance of Vasco da Gamma rays from a dwarf orbiter would be a smoking gun signature tune for disconsolate matter disintegration , ” Colorado - author Dr Oscar Macias , from the University of Amsterdam , said in a affirmation post to IFLScience .
“ Our study oblige a reassessment of the mellow energy discharge capability of quiescent starring objects , such as nanus spheroidal Galax urceolata , and their role as prime targets for dreary matter obliteration search . ”
The team believe that the yield of gamey - energy particles around the pulsar helps accelerate the photon from the cosmic microwave oven backdrop to gamma - ray energies , make the region we see as the Fermi Cocoon .
