(ORDO NEWS) — Incredibly massive shock waves the size of entire galaxies are rocking the entire cosmic web, according to new research.
The first-of-its-kind discovery not only highlights an incredibly amazing cosmic-level phenomenon, but could also help astronomers and cosmologists explain the origin and nature of the larger universe.
The press release announcing the discovery describes the cosmic web as “an intertwining network of filaments and clusters full of gases and galaxies that revolve around cosmic voids millions of light-years in diameter.”
The cosmic web, consisting of all known matter in the universe , was first theorized in the 1960s. Some computer modeling was carried out in the 1980s, but has only recently been mapped with any degree of accuracy.
No less significant for the threads of matter that make up the cosmic web are voids thousands of light years long between these threads. Moreover, like areas of matter, these voids have magnetic fields.
“Magnetic fields permeate the universe, from planets and stars to the largest spaces between galaxies,” explains astrophysicist Tessa Wernström of the University of Western Australia and lead author of the study.
“However, many aspects of cosmic magnetism are not yet fully understood, especially on the scale seen in the cosmic web.”
Hoping to shed some light on how these magnetic fields behave on a cosmic scale, and seeking to unlock some of the universe’s big secrets, Dr. Wernström and her team have pieced together the cosmic web’s puzzle of thousands of astronomical observations.
The results of the research, published in the journal Science Advances, could literally and figuratively shock the scientific community.
First, Wernström began her work by registering radio wave emissions from the filaments of the cosmic web.
These observations began in 2020 and are the first scientific evidence that matter colliding with other matter sent shockwaves through the magnetic fields of the cosmic web itself.
“When matter coalesces in the universe, it creates a shock wave that accelerates the particles, amplifying these intergalactic magnetic fields,” Wernström said.
“These shockwaves emit radio emissions that should cause the space network to ‘glow’ in the radio spectrum, but this has never actually been definitively detected due to how weak the signals are.”
To make these first verifiable detections, Wernström collected data from 612,025 pairs of galaxy clusters and all-sky maps from the Global Magnetic Ion Survey of the Medium, the Planck Legacy Archive, the Owens Valley Longwave Array, and the Murchison Widefield Array.
Wernström and her team then overlaid this data on a map of known clusters and filaments of the cosmic web to find correlations. According to the press release, the summation method “helps to amplify a weak signal over image noise.”
The received signal was compared with the most modern cosmological models. And, of course, this complex comparison confirmed that the collision of matter on a huge scale did indeed create shock waves on a galactic scale. Moreover, these shock waves propagated throughout the entire cosmic web.
“We present the first visible evidence that Fermi-type acceleration from strong shocks surrounding the filaments of the cosmic web, as well as at the periphery of low-mass clusters, is acting in the Universe,” the study abstract says.
The study notes that further observations will be required to confirm the original data. But the first signs of shock waves on a galactic scale, affecting magnetic fields throughout and between the cosmic web, may be the key to unraveling some of the mysteries of the universe.
“Our understanding of these magnetic fields can be used to expand and refine our theories about how the universe grows,” the researchers explain, “and may help us unravel the mystery of the origin of cosmic magnetism.”
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