Galaxy survives the black hole banquet for now



[ad_1]

Galaxy survives the Black Hole Banquet - For now

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 has 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

Black holes are thought to devour so much surrounding material that they end the life of their host galaxy. In that process they create a highly energetic object called a quasar that was previously thought to stop the birth of stars. Now researchers have discovered a galaxy that is surviving the ravenous forces of a quasar by continuing to give birth to new stars, about 100 stars the size of the Sun per year.

The discovery made by the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) may explain how massive galaxies were born even though the Universe 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 star birth 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, a joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center, DLR, has 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 its host galaxy, but the quasar’s intense energy hasn’t devastated all the cold gas, so 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 continued, both the black hole and the stars surrounding it would triple in size before the galaxy reaches the end of its life.”

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 that can study the birth of stars in this galaxy without being overwhelmed by the intensely bright 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 phase 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, would reveal how quasars affect the overall shape of their host galaxies.


Simulations show Webb telescope can reveal distant galaxies hidden in the glow of quasars


More information:
Kevin C. Cooke et al. Dying of light: a cold quasar in X-ray fading z ∼ 0.405, The Astrophysical Journal (2020). DOI: 10.3847 / 1538-4357 / abb94a

Provided by Universities Space Research Association

Quote: Galaxy survives black hole banquet – for now (2020, November 27) recovered November 27, 2020 from https://phys.org/news/2020-11-galaxy-survives-black-hole-feastfor.html

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any conduct that is correct for private study or research purposes, no part may be reproduced without written permission. The content is provided for informational purposes only.



[ad_2]
Source link