Namely, they discovered a signal that has an almost identical magnitude to some of the most energetic cosmic particles ever detected.
When analyzing the data collected by the Fermi Gamma-ray space telescope over the last 13 years, NASA astronomers discovered an unexpected and mysterious "signal" coming from outside our galaxy, which they cannot explain, reports Business Insider.
- It is an unexpected feature outside our galaxy that we are not yet able to explain - said Francis Reddy from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
A powerful telescope can detect gamma rays, which are actually huge bursts of energetic light and up to hundreds of billions of times stronger than what the human eye can see. They are often created when stars explode or a nuclear explosion occurs. But NASA scientists discovered an alternative signal while searching for something completely different.
- That was a completely accidental discovery. We found a much stronger signal in a different part of the sky than the one we were looking for - said Alexander Kashlinsky, a cosmologist at the University of Maryland and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, who presented the news to the American Astronomical Society.
Namely, scientists were looking for one of the oldest features of gamma rays to create the first atoms, known as the cosmic microwave background or CMB, which has a dipole structure, where one end is hotter and more charged than the other.
But instead, they detected a signal coming from a similar direction and of almost identical magnitude to some of the most energetic cosmic particles ever detected.
- We found a gamma ray dipole, but its peak is in the southern sky, far from the CMB, while its magnitude is 10 times greater than what we would expect from our motion - explained Chris Shrader, an astrophysicist at Goddard.
Scientists think that this discovery could be related to cosmic gamma rays observed in 2017 by the Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina. They also believe that these two phenomena, given their similar structure, could originate from a single unidentified source. They hope to locate the mysterious source or develop alternative explanations for both features.
This unexpected discovery by NASA could help astronomers confirm or challenge ideas about how the dipole structure is formed.
- The discrepancy with the size and direction of the CMB dipole could provide us with insight into the physical processes that took place in the very early universe, potentially back to when it was less than a trillionth of a second old - said Fernando Atrio-Barandela, co-author of the scientific paper of work published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
When analyzing the data collected by the Fermi Gamma-ray space telescope over the last 13 years, NASA astronomers discovered an unexpected and mysterious "signal" coming from outside our galaxy, which they cannot explain, reports Business Insider.
- It is an unexpected feature outside our galaxy that we are not yet able to explain - said Francis Reddy from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
A powerful telescope can detect gamma rays, which are actually huge bursts of energetic light and up to hundreds of billions of times stronger than what the human eye can see. They are often created when stars explode or a nuclear explosion occurs. But NASA scientists discovered an alternative signal while searching for something completely different.
- That was a completely accidental discovery. We found a much stronger signal in a different part of the sky than the one we were looking for - said Alexander Kashlinsky, a cosmologist at the University of Maryland and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, who presented the news to the American Astronomical Society.
Namely, scientists were looking for one of the oldest features of gamma rays to create the first atoms, known as the cosmic microwave background or CMB, which has a dipole structure, where one end is hotter and more charged than the other.
But instead, they detected a signal coming from a similar direction and of almost identical magnitude to some of the most energetic cosmic particles ever detected.
- We found a gamma ray dipole, but its peak is in the southern sky, far from the CMB, while its magnitude is 10 times greater than what we would expect from our motion - explained Chris Shrader, an astrophysicist at Goddard.
Scientists think that this discovery could be related to cosmic gamma rays observed in 2017 by the Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina. They also believe that these two phenomena, given their similar structure, could originate from a single unidentified source. They hope to locate the mysterious source or develop alternative explanations for both features.
This unexpected discovery by NASA could help astronomers confirm or challenge ideas about how the dipole structure is formed.
- The discrepancy with the size and direction of the CMB dipole could provide us with insight into the physical processes that took place in the very early universe, potentially back to when it was less than a trillionth of a second old - said Fernando Atrio-Barandela, co-author of the scientific paper of work published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
