MW Lab Press Conference at the AAS January 2025

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A press conference at the 245th meeting of the AAS on January 14th, 2025 presented by Danya Alboslani, a post-baccalaureate researcher working in the Milky Way Laboratory with Prof. Battersby.

X-ray Echoes Reveal the 3D Structure of Molecular Clouds in our Galaxy’s Center

A creative new method uses decades of data to learn about the 3D structure of molecular clouds, the birthplace of stars, in the center of the Milky Way.

Researchers from the University of Connecticut have created the first 3D maps of star-forming gas clouds in one of the most extreme environments in our Galaxy and have studied previous flaring events from our Galaxy’s supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*).

The center of the Milky Way Galaxy is an extreme environment where gas temperatures, densities, and turbulence are about ten times higher than the rest of the Galaxy. In this central region inflowing gas can sometimes find its way into the supermassive black hole at the very center. When Sgr A* feeds on this material it emits X-ray flares that propagate outwards in all directions. These flares interact with molecular clouds – gas clouds where stars form – in our Galaxy’s Center through the process of fluorescence. As the X-ray light travels, it illuminates slices of the molecular clouds over time, like an X-ray scan.

University of Connecticut Physics Researcher Danya Alboslani ’24 (CLAS) and postdoctoral researcher Dr. Samantha Brunker, part of the Milky Way Laboratory led by Associate Professor of Physics Cara Battersby, developed a new X-ray tomography method to make 3D maps of two Galactic Center molecular clouds dubbed the “Stone” and the “Sticks” clouds. These maps are the first ever renderings of Galactic Center molecular clouds in three spatial dimensions.  Alboslani detailed this research in her presentation “X-ray echoes from Sgr A* reveal the 3D structure of molecular clouds in the Galactic Center” at the 245th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in National Harbor, Maryland on January 14th. Two manuscripts have been submitted to AAS Journals and will be available on arXiv January 14th at 20:00 EST (or earlier by email to cara.battersby@uconn.edu).

For more information contact:

Danya Alboslani: danya.alboslani@uconn.edu or Cara Battersby: cara.battersby@uconn.edu

Elaina Hancock (Public Information Officer): Elaina.hancock@uconn.edu

Full press release available here: TBD

Figures:

Figure 1: An overview of our Galaxy’s Central Molecular Zone (CMZ) with Herschel data in red, Submillimeter Array data in orange, and Spitzer data in blue. The inset shows the X-ray integrated intensity map of the Sticks and Stone molecular clouds. Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/UConn/D. Alboslani et al.; Infrared: ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech/Herschel, NASA/JPL-Caltech/Spitzer; radio: ASIAA/SAO/SMA; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk
Figure 2: A schematic showing how the X-ray flares from our supermassive black hole, Sgr A*, propagate outwards, interact with and re-emit light from molecular clouds and then travels to Earth. The X-rays illuminate slices of the molecular cloud over time. By combining observations over decades, astronomers can use these X-ray echoes to construct 3D maps of molecular clouds, constrain the past flaring history of Sgr A*, and better understand the overall geometry of our Galaxy’s Center. Credit: S. Brunker (UConn).
Figure 3: Molecular gas data from the Submillimeter Array in the background grayscale with the X-ray emission from 2010 to 2017 shown in the colored contours. There is good overall morphological agreement, with strikingly good correlation for small-scale structures in years 2013, 2015, and 2016 especially. Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/UConn/S. Brunker et al.; radio: ASIAA/SAO/SMA.
Figure 4a: The resulting 3D models of the Sticks molecular cloud created using the new X-ray tomography method. Rotating view available upon request. Credit: NASA/CXC/UConn S. Brunker, D. Alboslani.
Figure 4b: The resulting 3D models of the Stone molecular cloud created using the new X-ray tomography method. Rotating view available upon request. Credit: NASA/CXC/UConn S. Brunker, D. Alboslani.