Mysterious Signals at the Center of Our Galaxy May Be an Optical Illusion
Mysterious Signals at the Center of Our Galaxy May Be an Optical Illusion
The universe could be deceiving us with its optical illusions.
Last spring, researchers discovered a great abundance of three elements in a group of red giants (dying stars in the last stage of their evolution) less than 3 light-years from the black hole at the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way. The high levels of these elements - scandium, vanadium Y yttrium - Baffled astronomers, who tried to explain the phenomenon with various theories. One theory suggested that the abnormally high levels of the elements resulted from the descent of the old stars into the black hole, while another postulated that the elements were debris from the collision of neutron stars, according to a declaration.
The last of these explanations was recently proposed by an international group of astronomers and atomic physicists. They argue that these elements did not really exist at the observed high concentrations. Rather, the elements were probably an illusion from the start, the researchers reported in a new study published yesterday (October 10) in the Astrophysics Magazine.
Scientists originally detected these elements by recording "spectral lines" with a spectrometer. With this method, scientists observe the amount of light that an object absorbs or emits. Because different elements will emit or absorb light in a slightly different way (called their spectral lines), scientists can use the information to find out what an object is made of. Scandium will interact with light differently, for example, vanadium, for example.
The[[Our Milky Way: A traveler's guide (infographic)]
The scientists who conducted the new research found similar scandium lines in red giants in our own solar neighborhood. However, the authors found that if the red giant was below a certain temperature, those spectral lines increased in strength. But this did not mean there was more scandium, vanadium or yttrium in the star, they said.
As to why temperature would affect the measurements, the researchers suggested that the electrons that make up the atoms of these elements behave differently at lower temperatures than at higher temperatures, according to the statement. Thus, the low temperatures of the red giants, which are much lower than those of our sun, could have emitted this illusion of spectral lines, according to the statement.
The researchers suggest that the great abundance of these elements is not a unique phenomenon in these giant red stars near the black hole, but that it is an illusion in the measurements. The formation of these strong lines currently "escapes precise theoretical models," they wrote in the study.
They came to the conclusion that these spectral lines should not be used as a measure of these elements, "until we understand better how these lines are formed," they wrote in the study. Researchers are doing just that, and they continue to measure the spectral lines of several stars in the Milky Way to better understand what they are made of.
Originally published in Living science.
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