phys.org: ALMA: "space tornadoes" around the Milky Way's core (March 19, 2025)
Swirling through the Milky Way's central zone, dust and gases constantly churn as energetic shock waves ripple throughout. An international team of astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array ( #ALMA ) have sharpened our view of this action by a factor of 100, discovering a surprising new filamentary structure in this mysterious region of space.
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Although the galaxy's central molecular zone (CMZ) has long been known to be [b]a region filled with swirling dust and gas molecules cycling through formation and destruction[/b], the mechanism that drives this process has remained elusive. Molecules serve as tracers for various processes in molecular clouds, with silicon monoxide (SiO) being particularly useful in detecting the presence of shock waves.
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"We can envision these as space tornados: they are violent streams of gas, they dissipate quickly, and they distribute materials into the environment efficiently." It remains unknown how these slim filaments initially arise, but shock processes emerge as a likely explanation, Yang's team reports.
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This breakthrough offers a more detailed view of the dynamic processes occurring in the CMZ, and suggests a cyclical process of material circulation. First, shocks act as a mechanism to create these slim filaments, releasing SiO and several complex organic molecules such as CH3OH, CH3CN, and HC3N into the gas phase and into the interstellar medium.
more: https://phys.org/news/2025-03-astronomers-space-tornadoes-milky-core.html
paper: https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/pdf/2025/02/aa53191-24.pdf
BSN4Y Jac
A&A, 694, A86 (2025) © Kai Yang, et al. 2025