{"id":777534,"date":"2024-02-20T19:13:50","date_gmt":"2024-02-21T00:13:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=777534"},"modified":"2024-02-20T19:13:50","modified_gmt":"2024-02-21T00:13:50","slug":"scientists-track-the-wave-moving-through-our-cosmic-backyard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=777534","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Track the Wave Moving Through Our Cosmic Backyard"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Astronomers say there\u2019s a wave rippling through our galactic neighborhood that\u2019s playing a part in the birth and death of stars \u2014 and perhaps in Earth\u2019s history as well.<\/p>\n<p>The cosmic ripple, known as the Radcliffe Wave, was identified in astronomical data four years ago \u2014 but in a follow-up study published today by the journal Nature, a research team lays out fresh evidence that the wave is actually waving, like the wave that fans in a sports stadium create by taking turns standing up and sitting down.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSimilar to how fans in a stadium are being pulled back to their seats by the Earth\u2019s gravity, the Radcliffe Wave oscillates due to the gravity of the Milky Way,\u201d study lead author Ralf Konietzka, a researcher at Harvard and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, or CfA, said in a news release.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-165807\"\/><\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<p>\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Radcliffe Wave is Waving\" width=\"1110\" height=\"624\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/GY5xLRr5npE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The wave \u2014 which is named in honor of Harvard Radcliffe Institute, where the undulation was discovered \u2014 consists of a string of star clusters spread out over a stretch of the Milky Way measuring about 9,000 light-years in length.<\/p>\n<p>Astronomers reported in 2020 that they identified the wavy pattern by correlating the 3-D locations of the clusters in data from the European Space Agency\u2019s Gaia space telescope, plus observations of dust and gas clouds in the same region. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s the largest coherent structure that we know of, and it\u2019s really, really close to us,\u201d said study co-author Catherine Zucker, an astrophysicist with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory at the CfA. \u201cIt\u2019s been there the whole time. We just didn\u2019t know about it, because we couldn\u2019t build these high-resolution models of the distribution of gaseous clouds near the sun, in 3-D.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At the time, the astronomers didn\u2019t have enough data to determine whether the peak of the wave was rolling down the line. That\u2019s what\u2019s known as a traveling wave, as opposed to a stationary wave \u2014 the kind of wave that\u2019s set off, for example, by a vibrating guitar string.<\/p>\n<p>Since then, additional readings about the motion of the star clusters have led the astronomers to conclude that the Radcliffe Wave is indeed a traveling wave that rises to a maximum height of more than 700 light-years and has a mean wavelength of roughly 6,500 light-years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow we can go and test all these different theories for why the wave formed in the first place,\u201d Zucker said.<\/p>\n<p>Konietzka said the potential explanations range from \u201cexplosions of massive stars, called supernovae, to out-of-galaxy disturbances like a dwarf satellite galaxy colliding with our Milky Way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Astronomers say the wave\u2019s rippling effect could in turn trigger bursts of supernovae and swarms of star formation within the gas and dust clouds of the interstellar medium. In earlier research, Zucker and other astronomers suggested that sometime around 14 million years ago, just such a burst gave rise to the \u201cLocal Bubble,\u201d a star-forming shell that surrounds our own solar system.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Other researchers have proposed that the long-lasting fallout from all those supernovae could have affected Earth\u2019s geology and climate \u2014 for example, by showering our planet with radioactive dust or perhaps even triggering an ice age.<\/p>\n<p>The Radcliffe Wave is currently about 980 light-years away from our own solar system, and appears to be drifting outward at a speed of about 11,000 mph (5 km\/sec). \u201cThe measured drift of the Radcliffe Wave radially outward from the galactic center suggests that the cluster whose supernovae ultimately created today\u2019s expanding Local Bubble may have been born in the Radcliffe Wave,\u201d authors of the newly published paper say.<\/p>\n<p>Study co-author Alyssa Goodman, an astronomer at the CfA, said the evidence supports the case for claiming that the Radcliffe Wave had an effect on Earth and its cosmic neighborhood.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPassage of the sun through over-dense material like the Radcliffe Wave and the Local Bubble does affect the heliosphere,\u201d she wrote in an email, \u201cand the timing does work out that some of the peaks in radioactivity on Earth (e.g., iron-60) line up time-wise with when the sun would have crossed the RadWave, Local Bubble surface, and other \u2018Local Fluff\u2019 clouds as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Now the study\u2019s authors are wondering whether the Radcliffe Wave is merely a local phenomenon. Could such waves be common? \u201cThe question is, what caused the displacement giving rise to the waving we see?\u201d Goodman said. \u201cAnd does it happen all over the galaxy? In all galaxies? Does it happen occasionally? Does it happen all the time?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>In addition to Konietzka, Goodman and Zucker, authors of the Nature paper, titled \u201cThe Radcliffe Wave Is Oscillating,\u201d include Andreas Burkert, Jo\u00e3o Alves, Michael Foley, Cameren Swiggum, Maria Koller and N\u00faria Miret-Roig. <\/em><em>The research is the focus of a BornCurious podcast titled \u201cRiding the Radcliffe Wave,\u201d as well an online 3-D interactive presented by Cosmic Data Stories and WorldWide Telescope.<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-block sd-like jetpack-likes-widget-wrapper jetpack-likes-widget-unloaded\" id=\"like-post-wrapper-24000880-165807-65d53faaece20\" data-src=\"https:\/\/widgets.wp.com\/likes\/#blog_id=24000880&amp;post_id=165807&amp;origin=www.universetoday.com&amp;obj_id=24000880-165807-65d53faaece20\" data-name=\"like-post-frame-24000880-165807-65d53faaece20\" data-title=\"Like or Reblog\">\n<h3 class=\"sd-title\">Like this:<\/h3>\n<p><span class=\"button\"><span>Like<\/span><\/span> <span class=\"loading\">Loading&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"sd-text-color\"\/><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.universetoday.com\/165807\/scientists-radcliffe-wave-moved-galaxy\/?rand=772204\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Astronomers say there\u2019s a wave rippling through our galactic neighborhood that\u2019s playing a part in the birth and death of stars \u2014 and perhaps in Earth\u2019s history as well. The&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":777535,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-777534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-genaero"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=777534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/777535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=777534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=777534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=777534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}