In a not so distant galaxy, 26 million light years from Earth, a black hole Mass “burped” two huge clouds of gas, providing important insights into this space phenomena.
The stripes of hot gas, captured by the space telescope Chandra NASA seem to be throwing before them cold hydrogen gas. These giant waves occur in the small galaxy NGC 5195, which is merging with the large spiral galaxy NGC 5194 .
This discovery, announced in the meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS, for its acronym in English), is an excellent example of feedback between a black hole supermassive and its host galaxy.
“We believe this feedback is what keeps galaxies become very large,” says Marie Machacek, co-author of the study from the Center for Astrophysics Harvard-Smithsonian (CFA).
“And at the same time can be responsible for the formation of stars. This shows that the black holes can create not only destroy, “he said.
Emissions prehistoric
black holes they are known to consume gas and stars, but according to the team of experts, the two arcs material seen in these images of X-rays are the equivalent of a “burp” after a good meal.
black hole probably gorged of a gas emitted by the interaction of the small galaxy and the neighboring lot bigger.
To the extent that the matter fell into black hole , had to be released large amounts of energy, causing the explosion.
Eric Schlegel, University of Texas at San Antonio, who led the team, he said the crucial observation was in the cold hydrogen gas that was propelled in front of hot gas emitting X-ray waves.
The telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, found a red light . deep in a narrow strip just in front of the outermost wave, indicating the presence of hydrogen
(Photo: NASA)
“If not been for hydrogen alpha image, I would have shown more skeptical, “says Professor Schlegel. “I would have thought that it was a mass that was coming (to black hole ),” he adds.
But a hydrogen patch spread in a thin form, very similar to hot gas arc seen in the images of the Chandra X-ray. It is indicating that this is a “burp” instead of a “drink”. In fact, is a cosmic seismic wave of a pretty old “burp”.
The team calculated that the inner wave must have taken him about three million years to get to the position where it is now, while the outside wave it must have been six million years.
“We think these arcs represent the fossils of two giant explosions when the black hole expelled matter to the galaxy, “said co-author Christine Jones, of the CFA. “It is likely that this activity has had a great effect on the galactic landscape.”
black holes often supermassive gas expelled in this way could explain why elliptical galaxies such as NGC 5194, tend not to be very active star formation, Schlegel said.
Other news of black holes
Other researchers who participated in the meeting of the AAS He described a black gujero different and very peculiar.
This is one of the pairs of black holes supermassive circling each other in a single Galaxy after a major merger event.
Surprisingly, only one of them is surrounded by a brilliant group usual spherical gravitationally bound stars, which means a new mystery to experts.
“The answer may lie in the fusion of the galaxy,” says Julie Comerford, astrophysics from the University of Boulder, Colorado. “When two galaxies merge no gravitational forces and strong tides that may deprive a black star hole,” he adds.
Another option is that the hole black hungry for stars can simply belong a rare middle class, and much smaller than the usual supermassive monsters found in the center of large galaxies. In this case, one of the galaxies that merged had to have been a dwarf. “Perhaps this little sphere of stars is appropriate to an intermediate-mass black hole,” Comerford said.
“There are very few who know are very rare and hard to find, but are interesting because we believe may be an evolutionary scale in the formation of supermassive black holes, “he says
.
Comerford and her colleagues published a study based on images the Hubble space telescopes Chandra in the journal “Astrophysical”.
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