Astronomers discover space ‘tornadoes’ around our galaxy’s core

Scientists say they’ve found “space tornadoes” swirling in the center of our Milky Way galaxy.

While the galaxy’s center, including the supermassive black hole Sgr A*, is known to be active and filled with swirling dust and gas molecules, the process has remained mysterious.

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array — a group of dozens of radio telescopes in the Chilean desert and the largest astronomical project in existence — astronomers were able to peel back the curtain and sharpen their view of the area. That’s how they found the so-called “tornadoes.”

“We can envision these as space tornados: they are violent streams of gas, they dissipate shortly, and they distribute materials into the environment efficiently,” Xing Lu, a research professor at Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, said in a statement.

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Lu is a corresponding author of the study, which was published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

They used the telescope array’s high-resolution capabilities to map the narrow bands of light within cold and dense regions at the center of the galaxy.

“When we checked the ALMA images showing the outflows, we noticed these long and narrow filaments spatially offset from any star-forming regions. Unlike any objects we know, these filaments really surprised us. Since then, we have been pondering what they are,” Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Kai Yang, who led the research, explained.

What they found do not fit the profile of previously discovered types of dense gas filaments, and it remains unknown how they form. But, they have an idea.

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It could be due to energetic shock waves, they said, citing the presence of emissions of bright lines and other observations.

The findings offer a more detailed view of what happens in the Milky Way’s center, and suggest that there’s a cyclical process of material circulating there.

Shocks would create the tornadoes, releasing gas. Then, they would dissipate to refuel the material that was released. And, the molecules the shocks release would then freeze.

The authors of the paper hope that future observations using the array will confirm how the tornadoes are formed.