SPACE NEWS: SCIENTISTS SOLVE THE CASE OF THE MISSING COSMIC WIND

OKLAHOMA — So besides spooky shit and unexplained mysteries, we're also huge nerds when it comes to space.

When most people think of black holes, they think of these gigantic, world-eating vacuums that suck up everything around them. And while that’s basically true, over time scientists have also discovered that these black holes can blast or expel stuff back out, creating what they call “cosmic winds.”

But the black hole at the center of our galaxy, called Sagittarius A*, apparently has a mystery of its own. The cosmic wind scientists detected coming from it seems to have mysteriously vanished. And before we move forward, to help put this in perspective, scientists estimate this black hole has a mass equal to roughly 4 million suns, which is absolutely mind-boggling.

And for those of you who don't know, we live in the Milky Way galaxy. And since we’re already here, let's talk a little bit about our galaxy. The Milky Way is absolutely massive. Along with our solar system, it contains billions of stars spread across an area roughly 100,000 light-years wide.

As for where we are specifically located, we're hanging out on one of the galaxy's spiral arms known as the Orion Arm. So, that puts Earth and our solar system about 26,000 light-years away from the center of the Milky Way, where Sagittarius A* is located.

In other words, don't lose sleep at night thinking a black hole is about to swallow us whole. We're pretty damn far away.

Fun fact: If we somehow had the capability to travel at the speed of light like they do in Star Wars, it would still take us about 26,000 years to get from Earth to the center of the Milky Way. That's how ridiculously huge our galaxy is.

And yes, that was a test. Because they don't actually travel at the speed of light in Star Wars. They travel using hyperspace, which is supposed to be even faster than light speed. So, kudos to those of you who caught that, fellow space nerds.

Anyways, getting back to our point.

For a hot minute there, scientists couldn’t figure out where the cosmic wind went because it seemed to mysteriously disappear. And that poses a problem when you're trying to understand what a supermassive black hole is doing and how it's interacting with everything around it.

But now, a brilliant team of assistant professors and researchers at Northwestern University believe they may have finally solved that mystery and figured out where this missing cosmic wind has been hiding all along.

To help explain it, one of the researchers compared the black hole's cosmic wind to a hair dryer.

Think about what happens when you use a hair dryer on wet hair. The air is strong enough to move your hair around and dry it out, but not strong enough to blow the hair completely off your head.

So, scientists believe something similar is happening near Sagittarius A*. The hot gas being blasted out by the black hole is strong enough to push around and heat up the colder gas surrounding it. And by doing so, it left behind some evidence that researchers were eventually able to detect.

So, the cosmic wind didn't really disappear after all. Scientists and researchers just had to figure out where to look for the clues it left behind.

Pretty neat, right?

The more we learn about space, the more it seems like we actually don't know much at all. And that's probably why it's so fascinating.

Anyways, that's today's dose of space nerd stuff. We'll go back to Bigfoot, ghosts, and unexplained mysteries. Carry on.