Astronomers have discovered a huge fracture in the cosmic bone of the Milky Way galaxy and Nasa has released an image of what it appears like.

X-ray data from Chandra and radio data from the MeerKAT radio array in South Africa show the cosmic bone dubbed G359.13 by Nasa. Nasa researchers looked closely at the mysterious structure and revealed the presence of a break, or fracture, in the otherwise continuous length of G359.13.

Astronomers have discovered an X-ray and radio source at the location of the fracture, using the data from Chandra and MeerKAT and the National Science Foundation’s Very Large Array.

The fracture is likely caused by a pulsar that smashed into G359.13 at a speed between one million and two million miles per hour.

A pulsar is a highly magnetised, rotating neutron star that emits beams of electromagnetic radiation from its magnetic poles. These beams sweep across space like lighthouse beams, and when one of them points toward Earth, we see a regular pulse of radiation. Typically about 20 kilometres in diameter but more massive than the Sun. They can rotate extremely fast—some spin hundreds of times per second.

The collision between the pulsar and the cosmic bone happened at a staggering speed of one million and two million miles per hour.

At about 230 light-years long, G359.13 is one of the longest and brightest of these structures in the Milky Way. To put this into context, there are more than 800 stars within that distance from Earth. G359.13 is located about 26,000 light-years from Earth, near the centre of the Milky Way.