[ad_1]
Illustration of the galaxy called CQ4479. The extremely active black hole in the center of the galaxy consumes material so quickly that the material glows as it spins in the center of the black hole, forming a luminous quasar. Quasars create intense energy that was thought to stop the birth of all stars and lead a lethal blow to the growth of a galaxy. But SOFIA found that the galaxy CQ4479 is surviving these monstrous forces, holding onto enough cold gas, shown around the edges in brown, to give birth to about 100 stars the size of the Sun per year, shown in blue. The discovery is causing scientists to rethink their theories of galactic evolution. Credit: NASA / Daniel Rutter
The hungriest black holes are thought to devour so much surrounding material that they end the life of their host galaxy. This banquet process is so intense that it creates a highly energetic object called a quasar – one of the brightest objects in the universe – as the rotating matter is sucked into the black holethe tummy. Now, researchers have discovered a galaxy that is surviving the ravenous forces of the black hole by continuing to give birth to new stars – about 100 stars the size of the Sun per year.
The discovery from NASAThe telescope on a plane, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, can help explain how massive galaxies were born, even though the universe today is dominated by galaxies that no longer form stars. The results are published in Astrophysical Journal.
“This shows us that the growth of active black holes does not stop the birth of stars instantly, which goes against all current scientific predictions,” said Allison Kirkpatrick, assistant professor at the University of Kansas at Lawrence Kansas and co-author of the study. . “It’s making us rethink our theories of how galaxies evolve.”
SOFIA flies over the snow-capped mountains of the Sierra Nevada with the telescope door open during a test flight. SOFIA is a modified Boeing 747SP. Credit: NASA / Jim Ross
SOFIA, a joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center, DLR, studied an extremely distant galaxy, located more than 5.25 billion light-years away called CQ4479. At the center is a special type of quasar that was recently discovered by Kirkpatrick called a “cold quasar”. In this type of quasar, the active black hole is still feasting on material from the galaxy that hosts it, but the intense energy of the quasar has not devastated all the cold gas, so the stars can continue to form and the galaxy survives. This is the first time that researchers have examined a cold quasar in detail, directly measuring the growth of the black hole, the birth rate of the stars, and how much cold gas remains to power the galaxy.
“We were surprised to see another whimsical galaxy that challenges current theories,” said Kevin Cooke, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas, and lead author of this study. “If this tandem growth continues, both the black hole and the stars surrounding it would triple in mass before the galaxy reaches the end of its life.”
An infrared camera called High-resolution Airborne Wideband Camera-Plus (HAWC +), was installed on the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, SOFIA, in 2016. This astronomical camera captures images using far infrared light, allowing early studies of low-temperature phases of the formation of stars and planets. HAWC + includes a polarimeter, a device that measures the alignment of incoming light waves. With the polarimeter, HAWC + can map magnetic fields in star-forming regions and the environment around the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. These new maps can reveal how the strength and direction of magnetic fields affect the rate at which interstellar clouds condense to form new stars. A team led by C. Darren Dowell at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and comprising participants from more than a dozen institutions developed the tool. Credit: NASA
As one of the brightest and most distant objects in the universe, quasars or “near-stellar radio sources” are notoriously difficult to observe because they often eclipse everything around them. They form when a particularly active black hole consumes huge amounts of material from the surrounding galaxy, creating strong gravitational forces. As more and more material turns faster and faster towards the center of the black hole, the material warms up and shines brightly. A quasar produces so much energy that it often blurs everything around it, blinding attempts to observe the galaxy that hosts it. Current theories predict that this energy heats up or expels the cold gas needed to create stars, stopping their birth and causing a lethal blow to the growth of a galaxy. But SOFIA reveals there is a relatively short period in which the galaxy’s star birth can continue as the black hole party continues to fuel the quasar’s powerful forces.
Rather than looking directly at newborn stars, SOFIA used its 9-foot telescope to detect infrared light radiated by the heated dust from the star-forming process. Using data collected from SOFIA’s high-resolution Airborne Wideband Camera-Plus or HAWC + instrument, the scientists were able to estimate the amount of star formation over the past 100 million years.
“SOFIA allows us to see in this short time frame where the two processes can coexist,” said Cooke. “It is the only telescope capable of studying the birth of stars in this galaxy without being overwhelmed by the intense brightness of the quasar.”
The short window of joint growth of the black hole and the star represents an early stage in the death of a galaxy, in which the galaxy has not yet succumbed to the devastating effects of the quasar. Continued research with SOFIA is needed to understand whether many other galaxies go through a similar stage with conjoined black hole and star growth before reaching the end of life. Future observations with the James Webb Space Telescope, which is expected to launch in 2021, could find out how quasars affect the overall shape of their host galaxies.
Reference: “Dying of the Light: An X-Ray Fading Cold Quasar at z ~ 0.405” by Kevin C. Cooke, Allison Kirkpatrick, Michael Estrada, Hugo Messias, Alessandro Peca, Nico Cappelluti, Tonima Tasnim Ananna, Jason Brewster, Eilat Glikman , Stephanie LaMassa, TK Daisy Leung, Jonathan R. Trump, Tracey Jane Turner and C. Megan Urry, November 6, 2020, Astrophysical Journal.
DOI: 10.3847 / 1538-4357 / abb94a
SOFIA is a joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center. NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley runs the SOFIA program, science and mission operations in partnership with the Universities Space Research Association, based in Columbia, Maryland, and the German SOFIA Institute at the University of Stuttgart. The aircraft is maintained and operated by NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center Building 703, in Palmdale, California. The HAWC + instrument was developed and delivered to NASA by a multi-institution team led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
[ad_2]
Source link
