Each lobe is 25,000 light-years tall and the whole structure may be only a few million years old.
Are the bubbles remnants of a massive burst of star formation? Leftovers from an eruption by the supermassive black hole at our galaxy's center? Or or did these forces work in tandem to produce them? Scientists aren't sure yet.
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"page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Fermi discovers giant gamma-ray bubbles in the Milky Way", "description": "Using data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, scientists have recently discovered a gigantic, mysterious structure in our galaxy. This never-before-seen feature looks like a pair of bubbles extending above and below our galaxy's center. But these enormous gamma-ray emitting lobes aren't immediately visible in the Fermi all-sky map. However, by processing the data, a group of scientists was able to bring these unexpected structures into sharp relief. Each lobe is 25,000 light-years tall and the whole structure may be only a few million years old. Within the bubbles, extremely energetic electrons are interacting with lower-energy light to create gamma rays, but right now, no one knows the source of these electrons.Are the bubbles remnants of a massive burst of star formation? Leftovers from an eruption by the supermassive black hole at our galaxy's center? Or or did these forces work in tandem to produce them? Scientists aren't sure yet, but the more they learn about this amazing structure, the better we'll understand the Milky Way.For an animation that shows the inverse Compton scattering responsible for the gamma rays, go to #10690.For an animation that shows an artist's interpretation of the Milky Way galaxy and the lobes, go to#10691. || ", "release_date": "2010-11-09T13:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:53:57.533439-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 489175, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010600/a010688/Fermi_Bubble_Graphic_Final_1_no_Labels_web.png", "filename": "Fermi_Bubble_Graphic_Final_1_no_Labels_web.png", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "From end to end, the gamma-ray bubbles extend 50,000 light-years, or roughly half of the Milky Way's diameter, as shown in this illustration. The bubbles stretch across 100 degrees, spanning the sky from the constellation Virgo to the constellation Grus. If the structure were rotated into the galaxy's plane, it would extend beyond our solar system. Hints of the bubbles' edges were first observed in X-rays (blue) by ROSAT (Röntgen Satellite), a Germany-led mission operating in the 1990s. The gamma rays mapped by Fermi (magenta) extend much farther from the galaxy's plane. No Labels.", "width": 180, "height": 320, "pixels": 57600 } } ], "sources": [], "products": [], "newer_versions": [], "older_versions": [], "alternate_versions": [] }