Wisconsin: First Optical Measurements of Fermi Bubbles Probe Their Origin

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Wisconsin: First Optical Measurements of Fermi Bubbles Probe Their Origin

Post by bystander » Fri Jun 05, 2020 9:45 pm

First Optical Measurements of Milky
Way’s Fermi Bubbles Probe Their Origin

University of Wisconsin | 2020 Jun 03
Using the Wisconsin H-Alpha Mapper telescope, astronomers have for the first time measured the Fermi Bubbles in the visible light spectrum. The Fermi Bubbles are two enormous outflows of high-energy gas that emanate from the Milky Way and the finding refines our understanding of the properties of these mysterious blobs.

The research team ... measured the emission of light from hydrogen and nitrogen in the Fermi Bubbles at the same position as recent ultraviolet absorption measurements made by the Hubble Telescope.

“We combined those two measurements of emission and absorption to estimate the density, pressure and temperature of the ionized gas, and that lets us better understand where this gas is coming from,” says Dhanesh Krishnarao ...

Extending 25,000 light years both above and below the center of the Milky Way, the Fermi Bubbles were discovered in 2010 by the Fermi Gamma Ray Telescope. These faint but highly energetic outflows of gas are racing away from the center of the Milky Way at millions of miles per hour. But while the origin of the phenomenon has been inferred to date back several million years ago, the events that produced the bubbles remain a mystery.

Now, with new measurements of the density and pressure of the ionized gas, researchers can test models of the Fermi Bubbles against observations. ...

Discovery of High-Velocity H-Alpha Above Galactic Center:
Testing Models of the Fermi Bubble
~ Dhanesh Krishnarao et al
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