"The loop has no characteristic temperature, so there is probably some ongoing process in there - that is our interpretation," Dr Sakano told the BBC News website.
As far as I understand, they mean that it does not have the spectrum of a blackbody (i.e., ruling out thermal emission).
Instead it seems to have a continuous spectrum, like a synchrotron. Which is why they refer to it as particle accelerator (maybe the particles are spiraling at high tangential speed and low centripetal acceleration).
As to where the charged particles come from and how they are accelerated, beats me.
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Guardsman Bass wrote:TWENTY Light years across. 130 TRILLION miles. It's almost unimaginable.
No. INCONCIEVABLE!
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Any more articles about this? This is fascinating stuff... you'd think astronomers the world over would be aiming their telescopes at that area of the sky.
SPOOFE wrote:Any more articles about this? This is fascinating stuff... you'd think astronomers the world over would be aiming their telescopes at that area of the sky.
It sounds like its only visible in x-ray and higher-band spectra.
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Obviously, this could well be the greatest discovery in the history of astronomy. A 20-ly particle accelerator-like structure? It sort of reminds me of the big Imperial device to stabilize the wormhole in Conquest, only... much bigger. It could be formed by natural gravity phenomena, but I can't see how.
Disregarding possible aliens for a moment, even if this thing is a natural phenomena, it's one hell of an impressive natural phenomena.
Too bad we couldn't reach it in a thousand year journey...
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