Missing the Obvious

by Cecillia

Recently, NASA's Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope released information that promptly shocked scientists, as well as the entire world. After all, how hard is it to find two gamma-ray bubbles that are 25,000 light years wide (50,000 light years in total) in the middle of the Milky Way? Just for a basis of comparison, the Earth is only 0.00001585 light years from the Sun.

At the moment, the origins of these gamma-ray emitting lobes are currently unknown. Many scientists have been split between two imperfect theories. The first is the idea of collision between high energy electrons and protons. Another idea involves black holes, a popular topic. Relativistic jets take matter that has been dropped into the black hole and shoot it out of one or both rotational poles. This creates a large amount of energy and yes, the bubbles. Incidentally, this may have been how our universe was created. Yet another theory is that the Fermi bubbles were created by a gas flow that resulted from a star formation. If enough stars form at the same time, heat gas causes bubbles to expand.

With such a large structure obscuring nearly half the visible sky, you would wonder why no one had discovered it until only a week or two ago. There actually happens to be a very plausible reason. Fog is created from gamma rays via collision of particles and gas, thus preventing any instruments from detecting the celestial body. However, a high sensitivity instrument from Stanford University, Fermi's Large Area Telescope, was able to isolate the fog.

At the moment, not much is known about the Fermi Bubbles. There are still many issues to be resolved, such as the bubble density. According to data, the particles within the bubbles are uniformly spread. However, this is impossible due to the shape of a sphere. No matter how you would look at a sphere the middle should seem denser than the sides. Still, despite inconclusive analysis, the Fermi Bubbles are an amazing sight and present another mystery for humankind to divulge in.

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