Everything in this Universe moves and does not stand still. Planets revolve around stars, stars revolve around galactic centers, and galaxies themselves move in intergalactic space. Some move alone, but gravity causes most galaxies to form into groups called galactic clusters. These galaxy clusters can be tens of millions of light years across. This makes the clusters one of the largest structures in the known universe.
In the latest published issue of the scientific journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, scientists say that one of the "byproducts" of collisions between such galaxy clusters may be the generation of the largest magnetic fields in space. Moreover, these magnetic fields are often even greater than the clusters themselves that gave rise to them.
When galaxy clusters collide, direct contact between stars rarely occurs. Even though such clusters may contain billions of stars and several trillion planets. The distances are too great. For example, when our Milky Way galaxy collides with the Andromeda galaxy in about 3.75 billion years, the result of this collision will be the emergence of one giant megalaxy, which scientists have already nicknamed Milkomeda. However, the colossal volume of gas, dust and charged particles that will be between our galaxies and stars at the time of collision, form arcuate clouds of material, which scientists call "relics." The name itself was chosen based on the fact that these clouds will persist for a very long time even after the galactic merger is completed. According to the information,provided in a press release by the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, since their first detection in the early 70s of the last century and until now, astronomers have identified about 70 such relics.
As part of the new study, an international team of astronomers decided to take a closer look at some of these relics and see if they generate any, even subtle, magnetic fields. The results were astonishing.
Giant galactic magnetic "sausages"
To conduct this study, the scientists used a giant, football-field-sized, ground-based radio telescope in Germany (photo above). It was decided to use the radio range because the strongest brightness of relics is noted in this part of the spectrum. In addition, with the help of radio wave images, scientists were convinced of the presence of strong magnetism, since particles passing through magnetic fields can affect the radiation of radio waves.
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The technical names of the galactic clusters that became the objects of the latest study have a rather complex shape - CIZA J2242 + 53, 1RXS 06 + 42, ZwCl 0008 + 52 and Abell 1612. However, most often the relics formed by them get their names according to the form they have. The relic CIZA J2242 + 53, for example, was named "Sosika".
An older radio image of the relic CIZA J2242 + 53, located more than 2 billion light-years from Earth (in green), as well as the collision of galactic clusters that gave rise to it (marked in red in the X-ray range). The background is a visible light image
The new radio wave images of the Sausage relic, as well as a number of others, look more esoteric, but at the same time are, perhaps, the most detailed among all the images of such objects. The images obtained by the scientists told that the three investigated relics have a very high level of organization, and the movement of their particles generates massive magnetic fields.
One of the images taken as part of a new study of the Sausage relic. It shows the intensity of radio waves (red - higher; blue - weaker)
“In fact, we discovered some of the largest magnetic fields in the universe, spread over 5-6 million light years,” said Maya Kjerdorf, astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy and head of the new study, in a press release.
In the same press release, scientists point out that "such magnetic fields may be larger in size than the galaxy clusters themselves." They are dozens of times larger than the Milky Way and about half as powerful as the field created by the motion of our galaxy through the space of the Universe, which is quite impressive for an "ordinary cloud" of gas.
According to scientists, these magnetic fields are formed by the gas cycle left after the collision of galactic clusters. The shape and power of these relics also suggests that galaxy clusters could collide at over 2,000 kilometers per second.
NIKOLAY KHIZHNYAK