Astronomers continue to uncover strange phenomena in the universe, with the latest being a phenomenon known as the Radcliffe Wave, and what’s even more intriguing is that it once swept through Earth.
A report in the journal Nature describes the Radcliffe Wave as a sequence of star-forming clouds merging into a mysterious wave. This wave is also the largest contiguous structure in the Milky Way Galaxy.
Simulation of the Radcliffe Wave moving through the Milky Way. (Image: HARVARD UNIVERSITY).
The Radcliffe Wave spans 9,000 light-years, starting from the position of the Canis Major constellation in the night sky and extending to the location of the Cygnus constellation, with the Lyra constellation in between.
Now, scientists have discovered that the Radcliffe Wave is not stationary but is actually in motion, similar to how a “wave” of fans travels across the stands of a stadium during a competition.
From a cosmic perspective, the wave structure is located about 500 light-years from Earth.
Researchers have also found that our Solar System seems to have glided through the Radcliffe Wave approximately 13 million years ago.
What happened during that time remains unclear, but it must have been an exciting period for life on Earth, according to co-author Catherine Zucker, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
Expert Zucker notes that the Radcliffe Wave contains star-forming clouds, which leads to supernova events with stars exploding. And Earth once passed through that wave.
The question arises: why is the Radcliffe Wave moving? What forces are behind that movement?
“The cause could be that stars undergoing supernova events have expelled dust and gas from the galactic plane, creating oscillations along the structure,” says lead author and graduate student Ralf Konietzka from Harvard University.
Expert Konietzka predicts that the wave pattern will disappear in a few tens of millions of years.
