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TeV Halos Around Middle-Aged Pulsars May Be Universal, Study Reveals Introduction: Pulsars and Their Mysterious Radiation Rapidly rotating neutron stars known as pulsars give off periodic radio wave emissions and streams of magnetic radiation, some of which are observable from Earth. These stellar remnants originate from the explosive deaths of massive stars. Discovery of TeV Halos Around Middle-Aged Pulsars Astronomers have recently detected expansive regions emitting gamma rays at TeV energies surrounding middle-aged between 100,000 and one million years. Termed TeV halos, these zones are markedly larger than the pulsars' own wind nebulae — clouds formed by the rotation and magnetic fields of the neutrons stars. Scientific Mystery: What Causes TeV Halos? The existence of TeV halos encircling some middle-aged pulsars is now well-substantiated, but the underlying processes responsible for their emergence are still not fully understood. It also remains an open question whether these...

Record Gamma Ray Emissions from the Milky Way's Heart: New Discoveries at HAWC Observatory Introduction to the HAWC Observatory At Mexico's High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory, perched 13,000 feet on Sierra Negra Volcano, researchers are probing a cosmic enigma in the Milky Way. An international team, co-led by Los Alamos National Laboratory, has detected ultrahigh-energy gamma rays exceeding 100 teraelectron volts, tracing their source to the galaxy's center for the first time. Breakthrough Discoveries "This breakthrough provides us with an unprecedented look at the center of the Milky Way, revealing energies an order of magnitude higher than anything previously measured," remarked Pat Harding, a physicist at Los Alamos and the Department of Energy's lead investigator on the project. "This study is the first to confirm a PeVatron source of ultrahigh-energy gamma rays at the Milky Way's Galactic Center Ridge, revealing that the galactic c...