The Galactic center is an active region of our Milky Way Galaxy. There is a supermassive black hole at the center of the Galaxy.
Beyond its sphere of influence, there is a rich environment revealing relic of past activities of the black hole.
As part of an international team, observations with the new South African MeerKAT observatory has discovered hundreds of
magnetized thread-like filaments in the inner 1000 light years of the region surrounding the black hole at the Galactic center. These filaments appear
harp-like, commentary tail-like, or loop-like structures. After a brief history of the discovery of radio filaments in
the 80’s, the nature and origin of these structures will be discussed with an emphasis of why it is so puzzling
to understand their origin.
F. Zadeh received his PhD in Astronomy from Columbia University in 1986 before he went to NASA/Goddard Space Flight center as a National Research Council postdoc. He then joined the department of physics and astronomy at Northwestern University in 1989 and has been there since. His research interests are the black hole at the center of the Galaxy, star formation and cosmic-ray physics.