Hidden in Plain Sight: Researchers Find Galaxy-Scale Bubbles Extending from the Milky Way
Monday, November 15, 2010 - 17:01
in Astronomy & Space
A group of astrophysicists has located two massive bubbles of plasma, each extending tens of thousands of light-years, emitting high-energy radiation above and below the plane of the galaxy. The researchers found the structures in publicly released data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope, which was launched in 2008 to investigate sources of extremely energetic photons--namely, gamma rays, which have higher frequencies than x-rays. [More]