News / Science News

    Scientists Surprised by Relentless Cosmic Cold Front

    The researchers used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory to study a cold front located in the Perseus galaxy cluster that extends for about two million light-years, or about 10 billion billion miles.



    A gigantic and resilient “cold front” hurtling through the Perseus galaxy cluster has been studied using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Image credits: NASA/CXC/GSFC/S. Walker, ESA/XMM, ROSAT


    Galaxy clusters are the largest and most massive objects in the Universe that are held together by gravity. In between the hundreds or even thousands of galaxies in a cluster, there are vast reservoirs of super-heated gas that glow brightly in X-ray light.

    The cold front in the Perseus cluster consists of a relatively dense band of gas with a “cool” temperature of about 30 million degrees moving through lower density hot gas with a temperature of about 80 million degrees.

    The enormous cold front studied with Chandra formed about 5 billion years ago and has been traveling at speeds of about 300,000 miles per hour ever since. Surprisingly, the front has remained extremely sharp over the eons, rather than becoming fuzzy or diffuse.

    While cold fronts in the Earth's atmosphere are driven by rotation of the planet, those in the atmospheres of galaxy clusters like Perseus are caused by collisions between the cluster and other clusters of galaxies. These collisions typically occur as the gravity of the main cluster pulls the smaller cluster inward towards its central core.

    If the smaller cluster makes a close pass by the central core, the gravitational attraction between both structures causes the gas in the core to slosh around like wine swirled in a glass. The sloshing produces a spiral pattern of cold fronts moving outward through the cluster gas.

    One of the most surprising aspects of this new research is that the cold front in Perseus remains sharp, even after billions of years. As the cold front travels through the galaxy cluster, it passes through a harsh environment of sound waves and turbulence caused by outbursts from the supermassive black hole at the center of Perseus.

    Somehow, in the face of all this bombardment, the cold front edge has survived intact. It seems that magnetic fields have draped themselves over the cold front, acting almost like a shield against the barrage of forces from the rest of the cluster.

    The magnetic field along the cold front is equivalent to about one millionth of the strength of a typical refrigerator magnet, and is about ten times higher than in parts of the cluster away from the cold front.

    Perseus is the same cluster where astronomers discovered sound waves with a note of B-flat 57 octaves below middle-C plus a giant wave about twice the width of the Milky Way galaxy. (NASA)

    APRIL 15, 2018



    YOU MAY ALSO LIKE

    A survey of more than 170,000 supermassive black holes, using NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), has astronomers reexamining a decades-old theory about the varying appearances of these interstellar objects.
    Many Pacific Island countries and territories will lose 50-80 per cent of marine species by the end of the 21st century if climate change and global warming continue unchecked, reports a new study.
    Scientists decipher sounds of Colorado Plateau arches' movements.
    The Herschel Space Observatory has uncovered a weird ring of dusty material while obtaining one of the sharpest scans to date of a huge cloud of gas and dust, called NGC 7538. The observations have revealed numerous clumps of material, a baker's dozen of which may evolve into the most powerful kinds of stars in the universe.
    People diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder have smaller brain volume than those without the disorder.
    There are merging objects whose gravitational wave signals have not yet been detected: supermassive black holes, more than 100 million times more massive than our Sun. Most large galaxies have a central supermassive black hole.

    © 1991-2023 The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin | Titi Tudorancea® is a Registered Trademark | Terms of use and privacy policy
    Contact