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Check Out This Incredible X-Ray 'Superbubble' That's Nearly 5,000 Light-Years Wide

This incredible image shows a pair of “nuclear superbubbles,” one over 4,900 light-years across and the other over 3,500 light-years. They’re emanating from the center of the galaxy NGC 3079, likely the result of a central black hole consuming matter and spewing it back out.

gizmodo.com|Ryan F. Mandelbaum

As with lots of the wild-looking things happening in space, these bubbles might be a potential source of the high-energy particles called cosmic rays that strike Earth from outer space. They might even be a source of those cosmic rays whose energies are too high to be accelerated by a single supernova, according to the paper published in the The Astrophysical Journal. The energies and locations of the x-rays demonstrate that the particle acceleration occurred at the outer rim of the bubble, rather than at the center of the galaxy.