Veil of fiery gas revealed around the disc of Milky-Way

Tags: Science and Technology

Veil of fiery gas revealed around the disc of Milky-Way

Why in news?

• Scientists may have finally hit upon the possible mysterious sources that have pumpedheat and kept alive the fiery hot gas which has been recently detected but has remained unexplained, so far.

Important points:

• Scientists at the Raman Research Institute (RRI), an autonomous institute funded by theDepartment of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, along with their collaborators at IIT-Palakkad and Ohio State University, have detailed the mysterious source through their proposed model in two related studies.
• There is more gas than stars in our galaxy. The prevailing, massive gas reserve is the main source for star formation in our galaxy. 
• The availability of such abundant gas helped sustain this process till date. However, because of its tenuous nature, astronomers have found it extremely difficult to see, let alone measure the volume of this gaseous matter.
• Since there is a continuous on-going star formation at various regions across the disk of the Milky Way, the massive stars in these regions explode as supernovae, and heat the gas around the disk to high temperatures.

 What is Milky Way ?

• The Milky Way is our home galaxy, a spiral-shaped collection of stars, dust, and gas that contains billions of stars, including our Sun.
• From Earth, the Milky Way appears as a faint band of light that stretches across the sky. The name"Milky Way" comesfrom the Classical Latin via lactea, which means "milky way". 
• The Milky Way is about 100,000 light-years across and 10,000 light-years thick. 
• The Milky Way has a central bar of stars with arms that wrap off the ends. The Sun is located in the Orion Arm, a small, partial arm.