'Fermi Bubbles'

Mysterious 'Fermi Bubbles' may be the result of black hole indigestion 6 million years ago

By Brandon Specktor - Senior Writer 13 hours ago

A black hole burp filled the Milky Way's center with mysterious invisible structures, a new study suggests.)

The gargantuan Fermi Bubbles are only visible in gamma-ray light. Where did they come from?

(Image: © NASA Goddard)

The center of the Milky Way is a puzzle of invisible, interconnected blobs. There are swooping tendrils of energy visible only in radio wavelengths, hourglass-shaped scars of X-ray light and — towering over it all — the mysterious Fermi Bubbles.

These twin orbs of gas, dust and cosmic rays emerge from the galactic center like two wings of an enormous moth, one on either side of the galaxy's central black hole. From tip to tip, the bubbles stretch about 50,000 light-years across (that's about half the diameter of the Milky Way itself), yet are visible only in high-energy gamma-ray light./.../