Astronomers have managed to get a clear image of the largest shock wave in the universe in the radio range. The wave, whose length is regarding 60 times greater than the Milky Way galaxy, has been rushing through space at a speed close to the speed of light for 200 million years already. According to scientists, it arose as a result of the collision of two clusters of galaxies. Details of this study were published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
The mentioned study of astronomers is associated with the object Abell 3667, which is located at a distance of regarding 730 million light years from Earth and is a cluster of galaxies. In fact, Abell 3667 consists of two clusters of galaxies that have collided with each other. In total, more than 550 individual galaxies are involved in this process, which slowly “mix” and turn into one huge cosmic “dish”. This is not visible in most telescopes, but as a result of the collision of clusters of galaxies, a strong disturbance arose – a giant shock wave that comes out from both sides of the merging cluster of galaxies and is visible only in the radio range.
As part of the mentioned study, scientists used the MeerKAT radio telescope located in the Republic of South Africa. With its help, astronomers obtained images of both halves of the radio component of the shock wave, and also found that these structures have a much more complex structure than was assumed on the basis of past observations.
“Shock waves act like giant particle accelerators and accelerate electrons to the speed of light. The waves are streaked with an intricate pattern of bright filaments that help trace the location of giant magnetic field lines and regions where electrons are accelerating.”— one of the authors of the study, Francesco de Gasperin, commented on this issue.
According to the researchers, the shock wave arose regarding 1 billion years ago, when the collision of galaxy clusters that make up Abell 3667 began. Galaxy clusters are the largest gravitationally bound structures in the Universe. When two such objects merge, such a huge amount of energy is released that has not been seen since the Big Bang.
When the wave fired electrons into space at close to the speed of light, the particles tore apart the magnetic fields in that region of the universe, emitting arcs of radio waves that scientists can observe today. According to the researchers, these arcs are moving at a speed of regarding 5.3 million km / s and are located at a distance of regarding 13 million light years from each other. At the same time, the length of each such wave is 60 times greater than the Milky Way galaxy, whose diameter is regarding 100 thousand light years.
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