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Detection of large-scale X-ray bubbles in the Milky Way halo
Open accessAbstract
The halo of the Milky Way provides a laboratory to study the properties of the shocked hot gas that is predicted by models of galaxy formation. There is observational evidence of energy injection into the halo from past activity in the nucleus of the Milky Way 1-4; however, the origin of this energy (star formation or supermassive-black-hole activity) is uncertain, and the causal connection between nuclear structures and large-scale features has not been established unequivocally. Here we report soft-X-ray-emitting bubbles that extend approximately 14 kiloparsecs above and below the Galactic centre and include a structure in the southern sky analogous to the North Polar Spur. The sharp boundaries of these bubbles trace collisionless and non-radiative shocks, and corroborate the idea that the bubbles are not a remnant of a local supernova 5 but part of a vast Galaxy-scale structure closely related to features seen in γ-rays 6. Large energy injections from the Galactic centre 7 are the most likely cause of both the γ-ray and X-ray bubbles. The latter have an estimated energy of around 10 56 erg, which is sufficient to perturb the structure, energy content and chemical enrichment of the circumgalactic medium of the Milky Way.
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“It was only very recently that the high-sensitivity X-ray telescopes, such as eROSITA (Predehl et al. 2021) and MAXI , have been able to detect the southern counterpart of the NPS, known as the eROSITA bubbles (Predehl et al. 2020; Nakahira et al. 2020).”
From The Fermi/eROSITA bubbles: a look into the nuclear outflow from the Milky Way (2024) · cites this paper as Predehl et al. 2020
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“Therefore, the energy density and the total energy in the eROSITA bubbles are, ϵ = nskBTs / ( γ -1) ≃ 2 × 10 -12 erg cm -3 and E th ≃ 10 56 erg, respectively (Kataoka et al. 2013, 2015; Predehl et al. 2020).”
From The Fermi/eROSITA bubbles: a look into the nuclear outflow from the Milky Way (2024) · cites this paper as Predehl et al. 2020
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“Therefore, the energy density and the total energy in the eROSITA bubbles are, ϵ = nskBTs / ( γ -1) ≃ 2 × 10 -12 erg cm -3 and E th ≃ 10 56 erg, respectively (Kataoka et al. 2013, 2015; Predehl et al. 2020).”
From The Fermi/eROSITA bubbles: a look into the nuclear outflow from the Milky Way (2024) · cites this paper as Predehl et al. 2020
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“The required energy and dynamical time for the 'Bipolar Hyper-Shell' were found to be ∼ 3 × 10 56 erg and ∼ 15 Myr, very close to the currently accepted values for the eROSITA bubbles (Kataoka et al. 2013; Predehl et al. 2020).”
From The Fermi/eROSITA bubbles: a look into the nuclear outflow from the Milky Way (2024) · cites this paper as Predehl et al. 2020
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“In the soft X-ray band, a few nearby sources of X-ray emission are very prominent, including the eROSITA bubbles (Predehl et al. 2020), the two Magellanic clouds, the Vela SNR, Virgo cluster, Crab Pulsar, and Sco X–1.”
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“The eROSITA ‘bubbles’ above and below the Galactic plane have been interpreted as evidence of past episodes of energetic feedback 36 , and some of our state-of-the-art models of galaxy formation predict that these features are common in Milky Way/M31 analogues at z = 0 (ref.”
Metadata
- Authors
- Predehl, P., Sunyaev, R. A., Becker, W., Brunner, H., Burenin, R., Bykov, A., Cherepashchuk, A., Chugai, N., Churazov, E., Doroshenko, V., Eismont, N., Freyberg, M., Gilfanov, M., Haberl, F., Khabibullin, I., Krivonos, R., Maitra, C., Medvedev, P., Merloni, A., Nandra, K., Nazarov, V., Pavlinsky, M., Ponti, G., Sanders, J. S., Sasaki, M., Sazonov, S., Strong, A. W., & Wilms, J.
- Affiliations
- Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (DE)
- Russian Academy of Sciences (RU)
- Ioffe Institute (RU)
- Lomonosov Moscow State University (RU)
- University of Tübingen (DE)
- Brera Astronomical Observatory (IT)
- Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Predehl, P.
- Sunyaev, R. A.
- Churazov, E.
- Merloni, A.
- Nandra, K.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2020-12-09
- Volume
- 588
- Issue
- 7837
- Pages
- 227-231
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W3112683134
- Cited by
- 234
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2026: 20 · 2025: 44 · 2024: 56 · 2023: 48 · 2022: 36 · 2021: 29 · 2020: 1
- FWCI
- 12.71
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- arxiv.org
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (cc-by)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Nuclear and High Energy Physics › Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena
- Keywords
- X-ray bubbles, Galactic halo, Galactic Center, soft X-ray emission, collisionless shocks, energy injection, circumgalactic medium, North Polar Spur, eROSITA, galaxy formation
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