LONDON: Super massive black holes at the centre of large galaxies could be powering blasts from deep inside the galaxy’s core, astronomers have claimed.
The huge outpourings of material are responsible for ejecting enough dust and gas to build more than a thousand stars the size of our sun every year.
And these outflows could also remove huge quantities of star-making gas, dictating the size, shape and overall fate of galaxies.
Astronomers have sought the driving force behind these massive molecular outflows for years, and now a team of University of Maryland scientists has found an answer.
The galaxy in the study, known as IRAS F11119+3257, has an actively growing supermassive black hole at its centre.
This means that, unlike the large black hole at the centre of our own Milky Way galaxy, this black hole is actively consuming large amounts of gas.
As material enters the black hole, it creates friction, which in turn gives off electromagnetic radiation – including X-rays and visible light.
Black holes that fit this description are called active galactic nuclei (AGN), and their intense radiation output also generates powerful winds that force material away from the centre of a galaxy.
