NASA’s Fermi telescope spots new gamma-ray beyond Milky Way, which could help solve cosmic mystery

The world of space never seizes to surprise, and yet again it left scientists and astronomers astonished with a new mystery. In recent events of cosmic exploration, astronomers discovered high-intensity light called gamma rays radiating outside our Milky Way galaxy.

The discovery was made when a team of NASA scientists and University of Maryland cosmologist Alexander Kashlinsky stumbled upon the strong gamma-ray signal while searching through 13 years of data from NASA’s Fermi Telescope.

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Kashlinksy called it a “completely serendipitous discovery” in the part of the cosmic universe where they were exactly looking for.

Newly found gamma-ray signals outside Milky Way deepentheir mystery

The origins of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) like gamma rays have always been one of the biggest mysteries in astrophysics. The discovery source of this newly found gamma-ray signal outside the Milky Way has now deepened this mystery further.

The team thinks the newfound signal is related to these high-energy particles, or cosmic rays, which are made up mostly of protons, neutrons and atomic nuclei. The signal is quite similar to the characteristics of a cosmic microwave background (CMB).

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The CMB represents the oldest light in the universe and is a cosmic fossil left over from an event that occurred around 380,000 years after the Big Bang. Before this, the universe was quite hot with densely populated free electrons and protons through which light could not travel.

After some time, the universe cooled down, so much so that it allowed electrons and protons to join together to form primordial atoms, this caused a sudden void. The lack of free electrons meant that photons were no longer endlessly scattered by these negatively charged particles.

The universe turned transparent from being opaque which allowed the first light to travel. The CMB made up these first free-travelling photons.

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The CMB was first spotted by American radio astronomers Robert Wilson and Arno Penzias in May 1964 as microwave radiation in all directions of the sky over Earth. In the 1990s, however, this seeming uniformity was challenged when NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) spacecraft discovered tiny variations in the CMB temperature.

COBE found that the CMB is 0.12% hotter and has more microwaves toward the direction of the constellation Leo. This pattern or "dipole" in CMB gave attribution to the motion of our solar system.

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Astronomers are hunting for this effect in other types of light so they can confirm the CMB dipole is the result of our movement.

Astronomers now want to investigate the locations of this new emission to determine the source, or maybe multiple sources, of this ultra-high energy light and these ultra-high energy particles to see if they are indeed connected.

(With inputs from agencies)