Let’s face it: astronomers still have enormous work to do to learn more about our Milky Way galaxy. They did, however, uncover a few general and key aspects, such as an approximate number of stars, the diameter, and more. But while the interior of our galaxy is posing so many problems, the closest cosmic regions to it might also require some colossal work from astronomers.
Researchers at the University of Sydney have untangled a little mystery surrounding the Milky Way, while you can also consider the word ‘surrounding’ in a literal way here. It seems that massive graveyards of stars, meaning neutron stars and black holes, are placed around our galaxy. We hate to disappoint you, but even something so huge, imposing, and powerful as a star will die someday after it burns up all of its fuel. The outcome is represented by a black hole or a neutron star.
The graveyard of stars even exceeds the height of the Milky Way
It’s fascinating that almost a third of the objects that exist in the so-called graveyard were once part of the Milky Way galaxy. David Sweeney, the lead author of the study and a Ph.D. student at the Sydney Institute for Astronomy, stated in a press release:
The ‘height’ of the galactic underworld is over three times larger in the Milky Way itself,
And an amazing 30 percent of objects have been completely ejected from the galaxy.
Here’s another important statement issued by the same Ph.D. student:
Supernova explosions are asymmetric, and the remnants are ejected at high speed — up to millions of kilometers per hour — and, even worse, this happens in an unknown and random direction for every object.
The Milky Way galaxy is known to have a diameter that measures about 100,000 light-years across. Trying to imagine something bigger than that is indeed mind-bending.
The new research was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
