Milky Way's Clumpy Halo

[BeauJangles]

Milky Way's Halo Is Clumpy And Into Recycling

KEY POINTS

• The Milky Way is surrounded by a halo of hot gas
• Researchers used data from a tiny satellite that has been observing the galaxy's halo
• The researchers found stronger X-rays in parts with more star formation
• Studying the halo could shed light on the mystery of the Universe's missing baryonic matter

Our galaxy has a halo of hot gases around it and a team of researchers found that it's actually into recycling. What could this mean about the mystery of the universe's missing baryonic matter?

The Milky Way, just like most disk and elliptical galaxies, is surrounded by what's known as a "circumgalactic medium" or a halo of hot gas. Our nearby neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy, also has this halo. And only recently, a team of researchers found that Andromeda's halo is actually so massive that it already touches the Milky Way's.

In a new study funded by NASA's Astrophysics Division, a team of astronomers discovered that the Milky Way's halo is actually "clumpy" and, that the galaxy may actually be supplying it with recycled materials from star activity.

For the study, the researchers used the observations of HaloSat, a 4 by 8 by 12 inches mini satellite and was first launched from the International Space Station (ISS) in 2018. Based on the tiny satellite's observations of the halo, the researchers determined that the Milky Way's halo has a "disk-like geometry," with the X-ray emissions being stronger in the parts where there is more star formation, corresponding author Professor Philip Kaaret of the University of Iowa (UI) said in the UI news release.

 

"That suggests the circumgalactic medium is related to star formation, and it is likely we are seeing gas that previously fell into the Milky Way, made stars, and now is being recycled into the circumgalactic medium," Kaaret added.

Why does this matter? This is because learning more about the Milky Way's halo could, in turn, also shed light on a much bigger mystery in the universe.

The team actually wanted to determine how massive the Milky Way's halo is, specifically whether it's many times the size of the galaxy. If it is, then it could provide clues about the baryonic matter that's been believed to be missing since the universe was born.

"If it's a huge, extended halo that is many times the size of our galaxy, it could house enough material to solve the missing baryon question," a NASA news release on the study said.

On the other hand, if the halo turns out to be composed mostly of the recycled material, then it’s unlikely to be hosting the missing baryonic matter, the UI news release explains.

Baryonic matter is different from the mysterious dark matter but it is also quite mysterious since scientists can only account for two-thirds of all the baryonic matters that should be in the Universe, the NASA news release added. The rest, as mentioned, has been missing.

This is exactly what HaloSat has been searching for as it studies the Milky Way's halo.

"It seems as if the Milky Way and other galaxies are not closed systems," Kaaret said in the UI news release. "They're actually interacting, throwing material out to the circumgalactic medium and bringing back material as well."

That said, the findings don't necessarily mean that the Milky Way's halo is composed mostly of recycled materials. In fact, Kaaret noted that the HaloSat data alone cannot determine whether the galaxy's halo is extended. It does, however, add to scientists' knowledge of this mysterious structure.

"What we've done definitely shows that there's a high-density part of the circumgalactic medium that's bright in X-rays, that makes lots of X-ray emissions," Kaaret said in the UI news release. "But there still could be a really big, extended halo that is just dim in X-rays. And it might be harder to see that dim, extended halo because there's this bright emission

For now, the researchers will add the HaloSat data to other X-ray data to help further characterize Milky Way's halo.

The study is published in Nature Astronomy.

A Hubble telescope edge-on view of the ESO 510-G13 galaxy is seen in this undated NASA photograph. The image shows the galaxy''s warped dusty disk and shows how colliding galaxies spawn the formation of new generations of stars. The dust and spiral arms of normal spiral galaxies, like our own Milky Way, appear flat when viewed edge-on. Photo: Getty Images/NASA

 

A note from the contributor. If lack of interest remains apparent as in past efforts to present astronomy subjects this will conclude all further future attempts in bringing them into the forum. God bless you, Beau. 

Edited October 20, 2020 by BeauJangles

[BeauJangles]

Our planetary existence in the universe is pretty much this = . 

[teddyv]

That is pretty neat. I had not heard of the galactic halo before this. The fact the Andromeda's and ours may be interacting is pretty remarkable considering the distance.

Galaxies were definitely my favourite targets when doing backyard astronomy.

[BeauJangles]

2 hours ago, teddyv said:

That is pretty neat. I had not heard of the galactic halo before this. The fact the Andromeda's and ours may be interacting is pretty remarkable considering the distance.

Galaxies were definitely my favourite targets when doing backyard astronomy.

Thank you for the response. My dad bought me a $50 refractive telescope from KMart back in 1969 and had both a lunar and solar filter adapter lenses that you could use for eclipse watching with safety factors effective enough for great viewing. You could also see the sunspots too, which was a neat thing to see changes as they came and went. It was great fun viewing planets, but was somewhat limited to Venus and Mars being our closest and were easy to see. In 1992, we had a rare total solar eclipse which is rare to see in this hemisphere.

I had it all set up in mid-day for the entire neighborhood to come and have a safe view, but no one came?

Maybe because Summer was on us and it was a hot day. Not a soul could be found on the entire block, so I watched it by myself. Just last year I've been doing more study of astronomy here at Worthy and have posted probably well over a dozen or more posts with photographs. Some may have been more interesting than others and I'll admit to that. I think this will be my final article. Too few have find it of notable views or comments to keep posting them. It's just not worth wasting my hard efforts to bring them here. Some sites resist copy/paste  

That's all there is folks... I have a feeling that I've worn out my welcome here also.

           

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         BeauJangles

 

Edited October 20, 2020 by BeauJangles

[GandalfTheWise]

A number of years ago we picked up a small telescope.  Seeing the 4 large moons of Jupiter and Saturn's rings is cool.  We moved a couple years ago.  About a month ago, those two planets were visible.  We dug into the storage room and put the telescope together so our neighbor's daughter (who's an adult with kids of her own) got to look through a telescope for the first time.  It was fun to see the excitement on someone's face seeing those things for the first time.

In hindsight, one thing I kick myself about is that when I was in grad school, I was too busy to make time to go out to the department's observatory (about 20 miles away from campus) even though I knew of a few of the people running it and who probably would have let me in to see things.

 

 

[teddyv]

I have not done much backyard astronomy for a long time. We moved up in northern BC so now in the summer it does not get dark until 11pm and in the winter its just too cold out. I have brought my scope out (4.5" Newtonian reflector) to the Christian school in the past to show a Mercury transit.

But years ago when living in the Vancouver area, I spent many a night in out backyard before the light pollution got really bad. I could actually find M81/M82 galaxies which was really cool because they were both in the same field of view. We were still just a bit too far north to get a good look into Sagittarius where so many nebula and star clouds are available.

1 hour ago, GandalfTheWise said:

In hindsight, one thing I kick myself about is that when I was in grad school, I was too busy to make time to go out to the department's observatory (about 20 miles away from campus) even though I knew of a few of the people running it and who probably would have let me in to see things.

Back in university, we had an astronomy club and the Astronomy department had gifted us with their old telescope on top of the building. A pretty decent 12" reflector with a hand-cranked dome. A couple members who were in electrical engineering rebuilt our clock drive, we purchased some new lenses and had the mirror recoated. I was one of the few who could actually locate things with out having to set the declination and RA. We also helped out the department when certain celestial events happened, notably the Hale-Bopp collision with Jupiter. We had a lot of regular folks come on down to have a peek at it. A couple long nights for us though.

[Guest]

On 10/20/2020 at 9:55 AM, BeauJangles said:

Milky Way's Halo Is Clumpy And Into Recycling

KEY POINTS

• The Milky Way is surrounded by a halo of hot gas
• Researchers used data from a tiny satellite that has been observing the galaxy's halo
• The researchers found stronger X-rays in parts with more star formation
• Studying the halo could shed light on the mystery of the Universe's missing baryonic matter

Our galaxy has a halo of hot gases around it and a team of researchers found that it's actually into recycling. What could this mean about the mystery of the universe's missing baryonic matter?

The Milky Way, just like most disk and elliptical galaxies, is surrounded by what's known as a "circumgalactic medium" or a halo of hot gas. Our nearby neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy, also has this halo. And only recently, a team of researchers found that Andromeda's halo is actually so massive that it already touches the Milky Way's.

In a new study funded by NASA's Astrophysics Division, a team of astronomers discovered that the Milky Way's halo is actually "clumpy" and, that the galaxy may actually be supplying it with recycled materials from star activity.

For the study, the researchers used the observations of HaloSat, a 4 by 8 by 12 inches mini satellite and was first launched from the International Space Station (ISS) in 2018. Based on the tiny satellite's observations of the halo, the researchers determined that the Milky Way's halo has a "disk-like geometry," with the X-ray emissions being stronger in the parts where there is more star formation, corresponding author Professor Philip Kaaret of the University of Iowa (UI) said in the UI news release.

 

"That suggests the circumgalactic medium is related to star formation, and it is likely we are seeing gas that previously fell into the Milky Way, made stars, and now is being recycled into the circumgalactic medium," Kaaret added.

Why does this matter? This is because learning more about the Milky Way's halo could, in turn, also shed light on a much bigger mystery in the universe.

The team actually wanted to determine how massive the Milky Way's halo is, specifically whether it's many times the size of the galaxy. If it is, then it could provide clues about the baryonic matter that's been believed to be missing since the universe was born.

"If it's a huge, extended halo that is many times the size of our galaxy, it could house enough material to solve the missing baryon question," a NASA news release on the study said.

On the other hand, if the halo turns out to be composed mostly of the recycled material, then it’s unlikely to be hosting the missing baryonic matter, the UI news release explains.

Baryonic matter is different from the mysterious dark matter but it is also quite mysterious since scientists can only account for two-thirds of all the baryonic matters that should be in the Universe, the NASA news release added. The rest, as mentioned, has been missing.

This is exactly what HaloSat has been searching for as it studies the Milky Way's halo.

"It seems as if the Milky Way and other galaxies are not closed systems," Kaaret said in the UI news release. "They're actually interacting, throwing material out to the circumgalactic medium and bringing back material as well."

That said, the findings don't necessarily mean that the Milky Way's halo is composed mostly of recycled materials. In fact, Kaaret noted that the HaloSat data alone cannot determine whether the galaxy's halo is extended. It does, however, add to scientists' knowledge of this mysterious structure.

"What we've done definitely shows that there's a high-density part of the circumgalactic medium that's bright in X-rays, that makes lots of X-ray emissions," Kaaret said in the UI news release. "But there still could be a really big, extended halo that is just dim in X-rays. And it might be harder to see that dim, extended halo because there's this bright emission

For now, the researchers will add the HaloSat data to other X-ray data to help further characterize Milky Way's halo.

The study is published in Nature Astronomy.

A Hubble telescope edge-on view of the ESO 510-G13 galaxy is seen in this undated NASA photograph. The image shows the galaxy''s warped dusty disk and shows how colliding galaxies spawn the formation of new generations of stars. The dust and spiral arms of normal spiral galaxies, like our own Milky Way, appear flat when viewed edge-on. Photo: Getty Images/NASA

A note from the contributor. If lack of interest remains apparent as in past efforts to present astronomy subjects this will conclude all further future attempts in bringing them into the forum. God bless you, Beau. 

This disc reminds me of sketches of the double helix; DNA/RNA.

[Guest]

On 10/20/2020 at 12:11 PM, teddyv said:

That is pretty neat. I had not heard of the galactic halo before this. The fact the Andromeda's and ours may be interacting is pretty remarkable considering the distance.

Galaxies were definitely my favourite targets when doing backyard astronomy.

The planets and the moon were favorites of mine.  I did find The Ring Nebula once and it was a good night in the city (St. Louis).

[BeauJangles]

22 hours ago, GandalfTheWise said:

A number of years ago we picked up a small telescope.  Seeing the 4 large moons of Jupiter and Saturn's rings is cool.  We moved a couple years ago.  About a month ago, those two planets were visible.  We dug into the storage room and put the telescope together so our neighbor's daughter (who's an adult with kids of her own) got to look through a telescope for the first time.  It was fun to see the excitement on someone's face seeing those things for the first time.

That's really neat, brother. My telescope though being about three feet long wasn't even able to see Jupiter but for a faint star like view. I guess even for its size this wasn't all that powerful. I did enjoy what it could see, however. 

[teddyv]

Yeah, the Ring Nebula was fairly easy target, plus being high in the sky was not hindered by looking through lots of atmosphere. It was really tiny but distinct through my scope. I did find it hard to impress other people when looking through a scope since most are used to those fantastic images captured by Hubble or large telescopes. I suppose it's less exciting to see a little puff of white that only stands out when you use your peripheral vision.

It's too bad we can't see Andromeda in it's full width across the sky - something like 4 degrees of arc - 4 times the width of the full moon.