Humongous, gassy halo found surrounding Milky Way
Our galaxy 鈥� and the nearby Large and Small Magellanic Clouds as well 鈥� appears to be surrounded by an enormous halo of hot gas, several hundred times hotter than the surface of the Sun and with an equivalent mass of up to 60 billion Suns, suggesting that other galaxies may be similarly encompassed and providing a possible clue to the mystery of the galaxy鈥檚 missing baryons 鈥� a.k.a.,听
The findings were听听today by a research team using data from NASA鈥檚听
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In the artist鈥檚 rendering above our Milky Way galaxy is seen at the center of a cloud of hot gas. This cloud has been detected in measurements made with Chandra as well as with the European Space Agency鈥檚听听and Japan鈥檚听听satellite. The illustration shows it to be nearly 300,000 light-years across 鈥� and it may actually be even bigger than that.
While observing bright x-ray sources hundreds of millions of light-years distant, the researchers found that oxygen ions in the immediate vicinity of our galaxy were 鈥渟electively absorbing鈥� some of the x-rays. They were then able to measure the temperature of the halo of gas responsible for the absorption.
The scientists determined the temperature of the halo is between 1 million and 2.5 million kelvins 鈥� a few hundred times hotter than the surface of the Sun.
But even with an estimated mass anywhere between 10 billion and 60 billion Suns, the density of the halo at that scale is still so low that any similar structure around other galaxies would escape detection. Still, the presence of such a large halo of hot gas, if confirmed, could reveal where the missing baryonic matter in our galaxy has been hiding 鈥� and possibly hint at the true nature of dark matter throughout the Universe.
Even though previous studies have indicated halos of warm gas existing around our galaxy as well as others, this new research shows a much hotter, much more massive halo than ever detected.
鈥淥ur work shows that, for reasonable values of parameters and with reasonable assumptions, the Chandra observations imply a huge reservoir of hot gas around the Milky Way,鈥� said study co-author Smita Mathur of Ohio State University in Columbus. 鈥淚t may extend for a few hundred thousand light-years around the Milky Way or it may extend farther into the surrounding local group of galaxies. Either way, its mass appears to be very large.鈥�
Read the full news release from NASA听, and learn more about the Chandra mission听.
Jason Major is a graphic artist from听Rhode Island听now living and working in听Dallas, Texas. He writes about astronomy and space exploration on his blog听Lights In The Dark, on Universe Today and also on听Discovery听News.
This story originally appeared in听.
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