Astronomers discover massive space “cavity” possibly left behind by explosion

Astronomers measuring the shapes and sizes of two gas clouds in space have discovered a large gap between them, leading them believe that the clouds are what remains of a series of stellar explosions or a single a massive.

The cavity in space is 500 lumen-years and sits between the constellations of Perseus and Taurus, both of which are home to giant gas clouds called molecular clouds. Researchers studying empty space believe that one of the following two things may have happened: Eeither a single massive supernova threw all the gaseous matter outward, or multiple supernovae created both clouds, with tons of space between them.

Supernovae should push gas out from the site of their explosion, causing all that gas to form a shell-shaped geometry. In this case, the two cloud structures on either side of space became Perseus and Taurus. Together, they form the “Per-Tau Shell”. The team’s research is published today in of them papers in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

“We can still expect to see remnants of the star cluster, in which the supernova (e) was triggered,” said co-author Shmuel Bialy, theoretical astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard and Smithsonian, in an email to Gizmodo. “We are seeing preliminary evidence of such a star cluster in the center, but it requires further analysis, and it is something that we plan to investigate further in the future.”

The Perseus and Taurus gas clouds are star nurseries in the Milky Way, which means they give birth to new stars. The team actually discovered the cavity between the clouds after rendering the objects in 3D, the first time this kind of approach was done, to see their structure like never before. Perseus and Taurus are just two of a dozen clouds whose structures the team has now mapped in 3D.

“We have been able to see these clouds for decades, but we never knew their true shape, depth or thickness. We also didn’t know how far the clouds were, ”said lead author Catherine Zucker, postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard and Smithsonian, in a Press release. “Now we know where they are with only 1% uncertainty, which allows us to discern this void between them.”

The cavity is perhaps more visible in a interactive model which allows you to drag and resize molecular clouds and the space between them. The team will probe the center of this space for evidence of the origin of the supernova (or novae), like arson investigators looking for a hushed match. The 3D model can also be visualized in augmented reality using a QR code in the paper.

You can essentially think of the Per-Tau shell as a nebula: the typically dazzling forms of gas clouds that emerge as a result of the death of a star. But in this case, the gas clouds did not appear immediately after the explosion, and the Per-Tau shell does not emit high-energy x-rays like nebulae do.

“We believe that the Per-Tau shell that we are seeing is a direct result of the supernova, only that we are seeing it at a much later stage (after about 10 to 20 million years), and therefore the shell is is already expanded to a much larger size (+ there may be the possibility that there have been more supernovae in the meantime, further aiding shell expansion), ”Bialy wrote.

Go forward, the team hopes to know if these cavities between the gas clouds following the supernovae are rule or exception for star formation. The emergence of new stars from the distant remains of the old shows how the universe continues to reshape, gaits gaits and dust to dust.

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