THERE'S A BARRIER AROUND THE MILKY WAY'S CENTRE

Astronomers discover an enormous, bizarre feature separating the centre of the Milky Way from the cosmic ray sea

- Brandon Specktor

The centre of the Milky Way may be even more bizarre than astronomers thought. A team of researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Nanjing investigated a map of radioactive gamma rays – the highest energy form of light in the universe, which can arise when extremely high-speed particles called cosmic rays crash into ordinary matter – blasting in and around the centre of our galaxy.

The map revealed that something near the centre of the galaxy appears to be accelerating particles to mind-blowing speeds – very near the speed of light – and creating an abundance of cosmic rays and gamma rays just outside the galactic centre.

However, even as the galactic centre blows a constant storm of high-energy radiation into space, something near the Milky Way’s core prevents a large portion of cosmic rays from other parts of the universe from entering.