super massive black holes they are mysterious entities that lurk hungrily in the hearts of probably every large galaxy in the observable Universe, where they lurk in sinister and ravenous secrecy, waiting for their dinner to come swirling into their expectant maw. These falling blows can consist of destroyed stars, clouds of disrupted gas, or any other unlucky celestial object that has been ripped apart by the gravitational clutches of the great black hole. Once a doomed object has passed the fatal point of no return, known as the event horizon, it can never return from the air of this gravitational beast, and is lost to the rest of the Universe forever. But, despite its bad reputation for being destructively ruthless, a supermassive black hole lurking in the heart of a galaxy far, far away has proven to have a nurturing character. This object has a maternal heart and is assisting in the birth of bright new baby stars that are more than a million light-years away. One light year is equal to 6 trillions miles

The discovery of this maternal heart of darkness, which has managed to spark the birth of stars at mind-boggling distances, as well as across multiple galaxies, was made by astronomers using NASA. Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes. If confirmed, the black hole would represent the widest range ever observed for such an object that behaves like a nurturing stellar mother, kick-starting the birth of stars. This maternal heart of darkness has actually enhanced star formation.

“This is the first time we’ve seen a single black hole drive star birth in more than one galaxy at once. It’s amazing to think that one galaxy’s black hole can have a say in what’s happening in other galaxies millions of billions of times.” miles away.” ,” Dr. Roberto Gilli commented on a November 26, 2019 Chandra Observatory press release. Dr. Gilli is from the National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF) in Bologna, Italy, and is the lead author of the study describing the discovery.

Said the raven nevermore”

Supermassive black holes are greedy entities that weigh millions to billions of times more than the mass of our Sun. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is home to such a gravitational beast, residing at its secret heart. Our resident supermassive black hole is called Sagittarius A*and as supermassive beasts go, it’s relatively low mass. Sagittarius A* (pronounced saj-a-star) it weighs “merely” millions, in contrast to billions, of solar masses. The dark heart of our Milky Way galaxy is quiet now. It is an ancient beast, waking up only occasionally to feast on an unfortunate celestial object that has come too close to where it waits. Even though he is mostly inactive, when both Sagittarius A* and the Universe was young, ate greedily, and shone brightly, like a quasar. quasars are the brilliantly dazzling accretion disks surrounding active supermassive black holes that haunt the centers of galaxies.

Despite their misleading name, black holes are not just empty spaces. In fact, they come in more than one size. In addition to the supermassive variety, there are stellar-mass black holes that form when an extremely massive star runs out of its necessary supply of nuclear fusion fuel and violently explodes as a core-collapse (Type II) supernova. The gravitational collapse of an especially massive star heralds its natural “death.” When a doomed heavy star has no more nuclear fusion fuel to burn, it has reached the end of the stellar path. Nuclear fusion within a star that is still “living”, turbulent and bright, creates radiation pressure which tries to push all the stellar material outwards. Meanwhile, the star’s own gravity tries to pull everything inward. This creates a delicate balance that keeps a star alive. Unfortunately, when a massive, giant star runs out of fuel and contains a heavy core of iron and nickel, it can no longer produce pressure. Gravity wins in the end. The core of the star collapses and becomes a supernova. Where once there was a star, there is no more.

Astronomers have also found convincing evidence for the existence of intermediate mass black holes they weigh less than their supermassive relatives, but more than their stellar-mass “relatives”. Shred enough mass into a small enough space and a black hole will form every time. Some scientists have proposed that these intermediate dough objects support each other and merge into the primitive Cosmos. For this reason, it has been suggested that they served as the “seeds” that created the supermassive black holes that lurk at the mysterious hearts of most, if not all, large galaxies, including our own.

The Milky Way’s resident supermassive black hole is not a lone gravitational beast. Sagittarius A* he has a lot of company. In fact, theoretical studies indicate that a large population of stellar-mass black holes (possibly as many as 20,000) could be fantastically shooting light around our own galaxy’s resident central black hole. A study published in 2018, which was based on data acquired from Chandra, suggests the existence of a treasure trove of stellar-mass black holes that haunt the core of our Milky Way.

Some current theories propose that supermassive black holes already existed in the ancient Universe. During that very early era, doomed gas clouds and stars swirled and then descended into the greedy, gravitating, sweeping claws of the hungry beast. never more to return from the violently swirling maelstrom that surrounds this strange entity. As the captured and doomed material swirled toward its inevitable demise, it formed a bright and violent storm of dazzling material around the black hole: its accretion disk (quasar). As this glowing, fiery material got hotter and hotter, it released a raging storm of radiation, especially as it traveled closer and closer to the Earth. event horizon which is the point of no return.

In the 18th century, John Michell and Pierre-Simon Laplace raised the possibility that such insults to our evolved common sense on Earth as black holes might actually exist in nature. In 1915, Albert Einstein, in his General Theory of Relativity, predicted the existence of objects with gravitational fields so powerful that anyone unlucky enough to get too close to their pull would be consumed. However, this concept seemed so outrageous at the time that Einstein rejected his own idea, despite his calculations to the contrary.

In 1916, the physicist Karl Schwarzschild formulated the first modern solution for General relativity which described a black hole. However, its interpretation as a space-time zone, from which absolutely not a thing could escape once trapped, was not properly understood until almost half a century later. Until then, these gravity beasts were considered just mathematical oddities. Finally, in the mid-20th century, theoretical physicists were able to show that these strange children of Mother Nature represent a generic prediction of General relativity.

A maternal black hole with a touch of Midas

The supermassive black hole that feeds it resides at the center of a galaxy about 9.9 billion light-years from Earth. The galaxy is in the company of at least seven neighboring galaxies, according to observations made with the Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory and the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT).

Using the Jansky Very Large Array from the National Science Foundation (NSA), astronomers had previously discovered the emission of radio waves from a jet of high-energy particles that is about a million light-years long. The jet can be traced to the supermassive black hole that feeds it, which Chandra detected as a powerful X-ray source. X-rays are created by hot gas swirling around the supermassive black hole. Dr. Gilli and his colleagues also saw a diffuse cloud of X-ray emission surrounding one end of the radio jet. This X-ray emission probably comes from a huge bubble of gas heated by the dance of energetic particles in the radio jet with surrounding matter.

As the scorching hot bubble expanded and invaded neighboring galaxies, it may have compressed cold gas in these galactic neighbors. This would have given birth to fiery baby stars. All the galaxies involved reside at approximately the same distance (approximately 400,000 light-years) from the center of the expanding bubble. Scientists estimate that the star birth rate is two to five times higher than typical galaxies with masses and distances similar to our planet.

“The story of King Midas tells of his magic touch that can turn metal into gold. Here we have a case of a black hole that helped turn gas into stars, and its reach is intergalactic,” said study co-author Dr. Dr. Marco Mignoli. on November 26, 2019 Chandra press release. Dr. Mignoli is also from the INAF.

Astronomers have observed many cases where a black hole influences its surroundings through “negative feedback.” This means that they have frequently observed a sinister black hole in the act of hindering the formation of new stars. This can occur when the jets emitted by the black hole send so much energy into the scorching gas of a galaxy, or cluster of galaxies, that the gas cannot cool enough to form a large number of baby stars. Although it may seem to defy common sense, things have to cool down before a hot baby star can be born.

“Black holes have a well-earned reputation for being powerful and deadly, but not always. This is a prime example of how they sometimes defy that stereotype and can be empowering instead,” co-author Alessandro Peca commented in the Chandra press release. Peca, before the INAFHe is currently a doctoral student at the University of Miami.

The astronomers used a total of six days of Chandra observation time spread over a period of five months.

“It is only thanks to this very deep observation that we saw the bubble of hot gas produced by the black hole. By targeting objects similar to this, we can discover that positive feedback is very common in the formation of groups and clusters of galaxies.” noted co-author Dr. Colin Norman in the Chandra press release. Dr. Norman is from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.

An article describing these results has been published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.