Using the Chandra X-ray Observatory, American astronomers have discovered a tunnel containing high-energy X-rays located in a galaxy one billion light-years from Earth.
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The Milky Way. (Photo: NASA) |
The tunnel may encompass the entire Milky Way and is approximately 200 million years old. Its width can reach up to 36,000 light-years, while its length may extend to 110,000 light-years.
This new discovery was announced at a recent meeting of the American Astronomical Society and is regarded by astronomers worldwide as further evidence of the intense collisions between hot material flows inside and the X-ray gas streams outside surrounding supermassive black holes in the universe. This tunnel is a remnant of previous collisions between these two enormous gas flows.
Observations by American astronomers suggest that the high-energy X-rays in the tunnel may be the product of explosions from within black holes in the past. These rays have helped illuminate the history of galaxies and their relationship with the tunnel.
However, astronomers acknowledge that while the discovery of this new tunnel marks a breakthrough in the field of astronomy studying galaxies, the interactive relationship between X-ray radio waves and the hot gas material flows emitted from supermassive black holes in the universe remains a mystery to science.