May 2, 2015 06:51 AM
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/201...stery.html
EXCERPT: Peering into the heart of the Milky Way, NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) has spotted a mysterious glow of high-energy X-rays [...] "Almost anything that can emit X-rays is in the galactic center," said Perez. "The area is crowded with low-energy X-ray sources, but their emission is very faint when you examine it at the energies that NuSTAR observes, so the new signal stands out."
Astronomers have four potential theories to explain the baffling X-ray glow, [...] none of these theories match what is known from previous research, leaving the astronomers largely stumped. "This new result just reminds us that the galactic center is a bizarre place," said co-author Chuck Hailey of Columbia University. "In the same way people behave differently walking on the street instead of jammed on a crowded rush hour subway, stellar objects exhibit weird behavior when crammed in close quarters near the supermassive black hole."
The team says more observations are planned. Until then, theorists will be busy exploring the above scenarios or coming up with new models to explain what could be giving off the puzzling high-energy X-ray glow....
EXCERPT: Peering into the heart of the Milky Way, NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) has spotted a mysterious glow of high-energy X-rays [...] "Almost anything that can emit X-rays is in the galactic center," said Perez. "The area is crowded with low-energy X-ray sources, but their emission is very faint when you examine it at the energies that NuSTAR observes, so the new signal stands out."
Astronomers have four potential theories to explain the baffling X-ray glow, [...] none of these theories match what is known from previous research, leaving the astronomers largely stumped. "This new result just reminds us that the galactic center is a bizarre place," said co-author Chuck Hailey of Columbia University. "In the same way people behave differently walking on the street instead of jammed on a crowded rush hour subway, stellar objects exhibit weird behavior when crammed in close quarters near the supermassive black hole."
The team says more observations are planned. Until then, theorists will be busy exploring the above scenarios or coming up with new models to explain what could be giving off the puzzling high-energy X-ray glow....