Two large objects have blasted out of a black hole in the universe.
The light from the black hole is bright enough to be mistaken for starlight.
While black holes themselves do not emit light, the largest ones are surrounded by gigantic swirls of gas called accretion disks; as gas falls into the black hole at near-light speed, friction heats the disk and causes it to blaze with radiation.
It is the first quasar ever identified. It is so bright that it shines more than 4 trillion times as bright as the Earth's Sun and sits at a distance of more than 2 billion light-years away.
Because the quasar is so bright, it has been nearly impossible for scientists to study the surrounding galaxy. Scientists don't know how quasars affect their host galaxies.
A new study published in the Astrophysical Journal could change that.
They are ripping their own galaxies apart.
The glow of quasar 3C 273 was separated from the light from its host galaxy by calibrating the ALMA radio telescope.
The radio- waves from the quasar revealed two massive and mysterious radio structures that had never been seen before.
One structure appears to be an enormous smudge of radio light that surrounds the entire galaxy and stretches on for tens of thousands of light years to the southwest. A gargantuan jet of energy, known as an astrophysical jet, stretches on for tens of thousands of light-years.
It's not clear how or why astrophysical jets form. They know that jets are often seen around quasars and other black holes, and that they come from interactions between a black hole and its accretion disk. Jets are usually made of ionized matter and travel at light speed.
The radiation released by these jets can appear brighter or dimmer depending on the radio frequencies at which they're viewed, but the large radio structure surrounding galaxy 3C 273 showed a uniform brightness. The researchers think that the two radio structures are created by different phenomena.
The team concluded that the radio fog is caused by hydrogen gas being ionized by the quasar itself. It is the first time that ionized gas has been seen around a black hole.
Can a quasar ionize enough gas in its host galaxy to prevent the formation of new stars? The researchers compared the estimated gas mass of the galaxy to other galaxies of the same size.
While the quasar had ionized a huge amount of gas, it was not being used to build new stars. The radiation-belching quasars at their centers suggest that galaxies can still grow.
The lead study author, an associate professor at Kogakuin University in Tokyo, said that the discovery provides a new avenue to study problems previously tackled using observations by optical light.
By applying the same technique to other quasars, we will be able to understand how a galaxy evolved.
The Hubble Space Telescope and the ALMA radio telescope were used to observe Quasar 3C 273. The radio object is shown in blue-white while the energy jet is shown in orange.
There are related content.
Black hole findings from 2020.
The light of 600 trillion suns is reflected by the quasar.
The informationgraphic shows how the galaxies are categorized.
The original article was published by Live Science. The original article can be found here.
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