NEW YORK: NASA astronomers have discovered mysterious wind storm that emerges from the center of galaxies. The explosion of wind is so powerful that it can disturb formation of new stars in host galaxy. These winds are emitting from the center and spreading in all directions. Researchers used two different telescopes of NASA and ESA; XMM-Newton and Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array. The study demonstrates how black hole affects development of new galaxies.
Astronomers using the National Science Foundation’s Very Large Array (VLA) found surprisingly energetic activity in what they otherwise considered a “boring” galaxy, and their discovery provides important insight on how supermassive black holes can have a catastrophic effect on the galaxies in which they reside.
“It appears that a supermassive black hole is explosively heating and blasting around the gas in this galaxy and, as a result, is transforming it from an actively star-forming galaxy into one devoid of gas that can no longer form stars,” said Chris Harrison, the lead-author of the study, from The Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy at Durham University in the U.K.
Two major types of galaxies are spirals, rich in gas and actively forming stars, and ellipticals, gas-poor and with very little star formation. The massive ellipticals, astronomers think, started life as actively star-forming galaxies. Powerful jets and winds of material, powered by supermassive black holes at the galaxies’ centers, are believed to remove or destroy the raw material needed for continued star formation.
“For many years, we’ve seen direct evidence of this happening in galaxies that are extremely bright when viewed through radio telescopes. These rare, radio-bright galaxies harbor powerful jets, launched at the black hole, that plow into the surrounding gas,” Harrison said. “However, to understand how all of galaxies in our Universe formed, we needed to know if these same processes occur in less extreme galaxies that better represent the majority. This was the focus of our study,” he added.
