The artist's visualization shows the supermassive blackhole surrounded by gas and dust, forming tsunamis at its outer edges. Image credit: Illustration by Nima AbskenarIs it possible that gas escapes the gravitational grip of supermassive dark holes could be creating "tsunamis in space?"NASA-funded research has seen astrophysicists use computer simulations to simulate the environment surrounding supermassive black hole in deep space. They discovered that massive structures similar to tsunamis could form near black holes. These black holes are actually massive swirling walls made of gas and have narrowly escaped intense gravitational pull. They believe that the most powerful black holes could be home to the largest structures that can cause tsunamis.In a NASA statement, Daniel Proga, an astrophysicist from the University of Las Vegas (UNLV), stated that phenomena on Earth are governed by the laws of Physics.Gallery: Black Holes of the UniverseThe artist's visualization shows the supermassive blackhole surrounded by gas and dust, forming tsunamis at its outer edges. These close-ups provide more detail on the tsunamis. Image credit: Illustration by Nima AbskenarResearchers took a closer look at supermassive black hole environment and how radiation and gases interact.Sometimes, supermassive black hole have large disks filled with gas and matter. These swirl around them and feed them over time in an active galactic nucleus. These systems often emit bright, shining, X-rays from above the disk. They are just outside the gravitational reach the black hole. This X-ray radiation creates winds that flow out from the center of this system. This is known as an "outflow".Researchers believe that this X-ray radiation could also be used to explain dense, gaseous areas in the environment surrounding supermassive blackholes called "clouds"."These clouds are 10x hotter than the sun's surface and move at the speed the solar wind so they are quite exotic objects that an airplane would not want to fly through," Tim Waters, lead author at UNLV, stated in the same statement. He is also a guest scientist at Los Alamos national laboratory in New Mexico.Computer simulations were used by the team to show how far away the black hole is, the atmosphere surrounding the disk spinning around it can form waves of matter and gas. These waves can become massive tsunamis when they are combined with the outflow winds that are pushed by X-ray radiation. Researchers found that these swirling waves can extend up to 10 light years above the disk. According to the statement, these structures, which look like a tsunami, are no longer subject to the gravity of the black hole.These simulations showed that X-ray radiation near a black hole can seep into hot gas pockets in the outer atmosphere of a disk. These hot plasma bubbles expand into cooler gas near the disk's edges, causing the formation of tsunami-like structures. These bubbles block outflow wind and can spiral off to form separate structures that are up to one light-year in diameter. These side structures are called Krmn vortex roads, which are weather patterns also found on Earth. However, on Earth this swirling vortex pattern looks very different.Krmn vortex streets were named after Theodore von Krmn (Hungarian-American physicist), who also marks the boundary of Earth's atmosphere from space.According to the statement, this research contradicts previous theories that hot gas clouds near an active galactic nuclear nucleus may form spontaneously due to fluid instability. The previous idea that magnetic fields were necessary for the movement of cooler gas from a disk surrounding a supermassive dark hole is also disproven by this study.Although no operational satellites can confirm their findings, the team hopes that future research will support their findings and perhaps telescopic observations. NASA also stated that observations of plasma close to active galactic nuclei by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton satellite telescope were consistent with the team's findings.This article was published in the Astrophysical journal on June 15, 2009.Chelsea Gohd can be reached at cgohd@space.com. Follow her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter @Spacedotcom
