A Distant Echo of Milky Way Central Activity closes the Galaxys Baryon Census


الملخص بالإنكليزية

We report on the presence of large amounts of million-degree gas in the Milky Ways interstellar and circum-galactic medium. This gas (1) permeates both the Galactic plane and the halo, (2) extends to distances larger than 60-200 kpc from the center, and (3) its mass is sufficient to close the Galaxys baryon census. Moreover, we show that a vast, $sim 6$ kpc radius, spherically-symmetric central region of the Milky Way above and below the 0.16 kpc thick plane, has either been emptied of hot gas or the density of this gas within the cavity has a peculiar profile, increasing from the center up to a radius of $sim 6$ kpc, and then decreasing with a typical halo density profile. This, and several other converging pieces of evidence, suggest that the current surface of the cavity, at 6 kpc from the Galaxys center, traces the distant echo of a period of strong nuclear activity of our super-massive black-hole, occurred about 6 Myrs ago.

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