Astronomers observe huge snake moving in the Milky Way: the Radcliffe Wave

A few years ago, astronomers made a surprising discovery in our galaxy, the Milky Way. They discovered a huge chain of wave-shaped gas clouds, right in our solar backyard. This structure, which we call the " Radcliffe Wave", gives rise to clusters of stars along the spiral arm of our galaxy.

Why "Onda Radcliffe"? In honor of the Radcliffe Institute of Harvard, where this cosmic undulation was discovered for the first time. But here comes the most exciting thing: the Radcliffe Wave not only looks like a wave, but it also moves like one!

Ralf Konietzka, a doctoral student at the Kenneth C. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Griffin of Harvard, who explains that by following the movement of the young stars born in the gas clouds along the Radcliffe Wave, we can track the movement of their gas and show that the Radcliffe Wave is moving.

This exciting discovery was made possible thanks to the collaboration between Professor João Alves of the University of Vienna, researcher Catherine Zucker of the Center for Astrophysics and Alyssa Goodman, professor of Applied Astronomy. Together they traced the three-dimensional positions of the stellar nurseries in our galactic neighborhood.

New technologies, new maps

A few years ago, astronomers revealed a gigantic secret: a chain of wave-shaped gaseous clouds in our solar neighborhood, where groups of stars are born along the spiral arm of the Milky Way.

Named the "Ra Radcliffe Wave" in honor of the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, this structure not only has a undulating appearance, but also moves like a wave in a stadium full of fans.

Similarly, the clusters of stars along the Radcliffe Wave move up and down, creating a pattern that travels through our galaxy and can now be measured.

This phenomenon, discovered in 2020, is the largest structure we know and is surprisingly close to us. He's been there all the time, but we didn't know it because we couldn't build high-resolution models of the distribution of gas clouds near the Sun in 3D.

Why does it move the way it does?

In 2022, using more recent data from the Gaia mission, scientists assigned 3D movements to the clusters of young stars in the Radcliffe Wave. Thus, they determined that it is really waving, moving like a "traveling wave." A cosmic wave that swings through our galactic backyard, driven by the gravity of the Milky Way.

Researchers have been exploring various theories to understand their origin.Some hypotheses suggest that it could have arisen due to explosions of massive stars, called supernovae.

Another possibility is that external disturbances, such as a collision with a dwarf satellite galaxy, have given rise to this wave. Which is possible, because the history of spiral galaxies is full of collisions and encounters with smaller galaxies.

An article published in the journal Nature also analyzes how much dark matter could be involved in the gravity that drives the movement of the Radcliffe Wave. Surprisingly, it seems that ordinary matter, without the need for significant dark matter, is enough to explain its movement.

New questions

This discovery raises new questions about the prevalence of these waves not only in our Milky Way, but also in other galaxies as well as the relationship that exists between this type of cluster, their movements and whether gravitational waves have something to do with it.

The Radcliffe Wave seems to form the backbone of the nearest spiral arm in our galaxy, which suggests that the spiral arms of galaxies could oscillate in general, making the galaxies even more dynamic than previously thought.

This leads us to wonder: what triggered this displacement that gave rise to the waves we observe? Does this happen in all galaxies? Is it an occasional phenomenon or something that happens constantly? The mystery remains unsolved, but each answer brings us a little closer to understanding the secrets of the universe.