‘Ravenous’ Supermassive Black Hole is Captured Belching Out ‘Food’ Into the Universe
12 million light-years from Earth, a hungry supermassive black hole is messily eating space matter and spitting it back out again into the Universe.
The European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT) captured the faraway spiral galaxy — known as NGC 4945 — as it blows the material so powerfully that it will clear the galaxy entirely and enter the void of intergalactic space.
“At the very centre of nearly every galaxy is a supermassive black hole,” the ESO writes in a statement. “Some, like the one at the centre of our own Milky Way, aren’t particularly hungry. But NGC 4945’s supermassive black hole is ravenous, consuming huge amounts of matter.”
The MUSE instrument — one of the most advanced spectrographs in the world — mounted on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, caught NGC 4945 playing with its food.
“This messy eater, contrary to a black hole’s typical all-consuming reputation, is blowing out powerful winds of material,” writes the ESO.
“This cone-shaped wind is shown in red in the inset, overlaid on a wider image captured with the MPG/ESO telescope at La Silla. In fact, this wind is moving so fast that it will end up escaping the galaxy altogether.”
The image was captured as part of a new study looking at how winds blow in other galaxies. The data shows that galactic winds in NGC 4945 speed up as they travel away from the black hole, getting faster as they approach the outskirts of the galaxy. This is contrary to most galactic winds which generally slow down the further they travel from a black hole.
“This process ejects potential star-forming material from a galaxy, suggesting that black holes control the fates of their host galaxies by dampening the stellar birth rate,” the ESO writes.
“It also shows that the more powerful black holes impede their own growth by removing the gas and dust they feed on, driving the whole system closer towards a sort of galactic equilibrium. Now, with these new results, we are one step closer to understanding the acceleration mechanism of the winds responsible for shaping the evolution of galaxies, and the history of the universe.”
Image credits: European Southern Observatory.
