All posts tagged: supermassive

Two supermassive black holes are on a collision course

Two supermassive black holes are on a collision course

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Supermassive black holes literally don’t add up. Astrophysicists know it takes more time than is mathematically possible for one of them to reach its incomprehensible proportions via standard gas accretion. Despite this, they are clearly observable at the center of nearly every large galaxy. So how do they get so big? The likeliest explanation is that supermassive black holes attain their size when two smaller black holes smack into one another during a galactic collision. For years, this theory has remained simply that—a theory. However, evidence from a team at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy now offers the first clear look at a pair of supermassive black holes at the heart of a distant galaxy. As they explain in a study published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, the duo is racing towards a head-on collision. Markarian 501 (Mrk 501) is an elliptical galaxy located in the Hercules constellation, and the site of …

Supermassive black holes might trace back to huge, ancient stars

Supermassive black holes might trace back to huge, ancient stars

Published by skeptic

black hole: A region of space having a gravitational field so intense that no matter or radiation (including light) can escape. cancer: Any of more than 100 different diseases, each characterized by the rapid, uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells. The development and growth of cancers, also known as malignancies, can lead to tumors, pain and death. computer model: A program that runs on a computer that creates a model, or simulation, of a real-world feature, phenomenon or event. element: A building block of some larger structure. (in chemistry) Each of more than one hundred substances for which the smallest unit of each is a single atom. Examples include hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, lithium and uranium. evolve: (adj. evolving) To change gradually over generations, or a long period of time. field: An area of study, as in: Her field of research is biology. Also a term to describe a real-world environment in which some research is conducted, such as at sea, in a forest, on a mountaintop or on a city street. It is the opposite of …

OJ 287 has the most supermassive pair of black holes ever

OJ 287 has the most supermassive pair of black holes ever

Published by Jenni Sidey

The closest supermassive black hole pair, in NGC 7727, was discovered in 2021. The galaxy NGC 7727 shows extended spiral arms: likely the aftermath of a recent major merger between two comparably massive galaxies. The presence of two supermassive black holes inside this galaxy, as well as the extended streams of gas and stars, show one possible outcome of a major merger of two similar-mass, initially gas-rich galaxies. Credit: ESO/VST ATLAS team. Acknowledgment: Durham University/CASU/WFAU Just 89 million light-years away, these 154,000,000- and 6,300,000-solar-mass black holes are just 1,600 light-years apart. A close-up (left) and wider-field (right) view of the central nucleus of the nearby galaxy NGC 7727. Just 89 million light-years away, it houses the closest pair of binary supermassive black holes known, with a separation of 1,600 light-years. While friction with the environment can lead supermassive black holes to closely approach one another, the final stages of an inspiral and merger should come due to gravitational wave emission. Binary supermassive black holes are fairly common at the centers of galaxies, representing about 1-in-1000 …

Supermassive black holes did more for galaxy evolution than we thought

Supermassive black holes did more for galaxy evolution than we thought

Published by skeptic

Supermassive black holes may slow star formation not only in their own galaxies but also in neighbouring galaxies, suggesting they may have played a much larger role in shaping galaxy evolution in the early Universe than previously thought. Intense radiation emitted by active supermassive black holes – thought to reside at the centre of most galaxies – can slow star growth not just in their host galaxy, but also in galaxies millions of light-years away, according to a new study. “Traditionally, people have thought that because galaxies are so far apart, they evolve largely on their own,” explained Yongda Zhu, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Arizona Department of Astronomy and Steward Observatory who led the study. “However, we found that a very active, supermassive black hole in one galaxy can affect other galaxies across millions of light-years, suggesting that galaxy evolution may be more of a group effort.” Destructive nature of supermassive black holes affects star growth Zhu explained that this is known as the “galaxy ecosystem”, and it can be compared to …

Physicists propose a new way to spot supermassive black hole pairs

Physicists propose a new way to spot supermassive black hole pairs

Published by Jenni Sidey

Supermassive black holes rarely travel alone. Most large galaxies hide one at the center, and when galaxies collide, the two central black holes can end up bound together. Astronomers have seen plenty of wide pairs. The tighter ones, the kind that spiral inward and eventually merge, have been much harder to pin down. Researchers at the University of Oxford and the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute) think the missing systems may be giving themselves away anyway, in brief, repeating flashes of starlight. In a paper published today in Physical Review Letters, they argue that a tight supermassive black hole binary could act like a moving magnifying glass, repeatedly boosting the light from individual stars in the same galaxy. “Supermassive black holes act as natural telescopes,” said Dr Miguel Zumalacárregui from the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics. “Because of their enormous mass and compact size, they strongly bend passing light. Starlight from the same host galaxy can be focused into extraordinarily bright images, a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing.” Artistic impression …

Ancient “dead galaxy” starved by its supermassive black hole

Ancient “dead galaxy” starved by its supermassive black hole

Published by skeptic

University of Cambridge astronomers have identified one of the earliest known dead galaxies, shedding new light on how some massive galaxies in the young Universe abruptly stop forming stars. Using observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), researchers found that a growing supermassive black hole can slowly starve a galaxy rather than destroy it outright. A massive galaxy from the early Universe The galaxy, catalogued as GS-10578 and nicknamed Pablo’s Galaxy, existed just three billion years after the Big Bang. Despite this early stage in cosmic history, it is enormous – around 200 billion times the mass of the Sun. Most of its stars formed between 12.5 and 11.5 billion years ago, indicating a rapid burst of star formation before the galaxy suddenly shut down. Dubbed a “live fast, die young” galaxy, Pablo’s Galaxy stopped producing stars while still relatively young. The culprit appears to be a severe shortage of cold gas, the essential ingredient for star formation. Starvation rather than destruction Rather than a single catastrophic …

Astronomers watch a supermassive black hole X-ray flare ignite an ultra-fast galactic wind

Astronomers watch a supermassive black hole X-ray flare ignite an ultra-fast galactic wind

Published by Jenni Sidey

A supermassive black hole in the spiral galaxy NGC 3783 just delivered an X-ray surprise that astronomers have never watched unfold so quickly. Using the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton and the JAXA-led XRISM mission, researchers saw a bright flare rise and fade, and then saw a burst of ultra-fast wind appear within about a day, racing outward at roughly 60,000 kilometers per second, near one-fifth the speed of light. “We’ve not watched a black hole create winds this speedily before,” Gu says. “For the first time, we’ve seen how a rapid burst of X-ray light from a black hole immediately triggers ultra-fast winds, with these winds forming in just a single day.” XRISM Xtend light curves from the NGC 3783 campaign. Left: soft- and hard-band light curves, shown in black and red, respectively. The light curve has been binned to multiples of the XRISM orbit (5747 s), and in this paper we count time since the start of the XRISM observation. Right: X-ray variability surrounding the main soft flare at t ∼ 2.8 × 105 s. (CREDIT: Astronomy & …

Three supermassive black holes have been spotted merging into one

Three supermassive black holes have been spotted merging into one

Published by skeptic

Supermassive black holes occasionally devour or merge with other black holes MARK GARLICK/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Three galaxies with supermassive black holes at their centres appear to be in the process of merging into a single, giant galaxy, a process that astronomers have rarely seen. To grow to such enormous sizes, astronomers think supermassive black holes must occasionally devour or merge with other massive black holes during collisions between galaxies. This process is difficult to spot, both because these mergers are short-lived compared with the lifetime of the black hole and because the black holes can only be easily seen if they are giving off light from actively feeding on material, which is also rare. As a result, astronomers have only caught around 150 pairs of galactic black holes in the act of merging. Now, Emma Schwartzman at the US Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC and her colleagues have found a group of three supermassive black holes, all actively feeding, that appear to be combining into a single system. “The more galaxies involved, the rarer …