Scientists Reclassify Galactic Center Lobe as 6,520-Light-Year Loop, Not 26,000-Light-Year Core Feature
Updated
Updated · ScienceAlert · Jul 18
Scientists Reclassify Galactic Center Lobe as 6,520-Light-Year Loop, Not 26,000-Light-Year Core Feature
3 articles · Updated · ScienceAlert · Jul 18
Summary
A team led by Kathryn Kreckel found the Galactic center lobe is a closed loop about 6,520 light-years from Earth, overturning the long-held view that it erupts from the Milky Way’s center.
SDSS-V Local Volume Mapper data exposed the loop’s hidden lower half through ionized sulfur emission, which penetrates dust better than radio views and showed the structure is a foreground bubble, not an open lobe.
Dust-dimming measurements against 3D Milky Way dust maps placed the object far nearer than the galactic center’s roughly 26,000-light-year distance, shrinking it to about 115 light-years across.
The researchers say the glowing hydrogen bubble was likely carved by massive stars and later ionized by a newer stellar generation, in a process similar to Barnard’s Loop.
Published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, the result resolves a 40-year debate and underscores how crowded, dust-obscured sightlines can mislead even in one of the galaxy’s most studied regions.