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In images from the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists have spotted an entirely new phenomenon. Reaching tens of thousands of light-years into the void of space, vast shadows stretch out from the center of the galaxy IC 5063, as if something is blocking the bright light.
You’ve probably seen something very similar before: Beams of light coming from the sun just below the horizon and clouds or mountains only partially block its light, known as crepuscular rays. According to astronomers, the shadows of IC 5063 could be something very similar. They’re just a lot bigger – at least 36,000 light years in each direction.
IC 5063, a galaxy 156 million light years away, is a Seyfert galaxy. This means that it has an active nucleus; the supermassive black hole at its center actively absorbs material from a dense accretion disk and a torus of dust and gas around it.
Although the supermassive black hole itself does not give off any light, the intense forces involved in this massive accretion process generate so much heat and light from the region around the black hole that the galactic core is absolutely burning through space. . It is this light, believe astronomers, that is shaded. Obstruction? Probably caused by dust.
Crepuscular rays. (Zolt Levay / Hubblesite)
“We believe we have found evidence that there is likely dust all over the galaxy scattering accreting black hole light into the galaxy’s active core, and that the light can illuminate almost the entire galaxy,” he said. Harvard Smithsonian astronomer Peter Maksym said. Center of Astrophysics.
“We know that this galaxy recently merged with another galaxy and that could raise dust everywhere. It is also possible that jets from black holes are blowing dust near the core.”
The weird features were originally spotted in December 2019 by amateur spatial image processor Judy Schmidt. It traced the raw data of the new observations of the Hubble Space Telescope in images, obtained in 2018 and 2019.
In the original images, there was no sign of the cone-shaped features. But Schmidt spotted something wrong right away.
“I noticed the dark rays almost immediately after opening the file in Photoshop and started enhancing them to make sure what I thought I was seeing was there,” Schmidt explained.
“Even after I treated it, I continued to blink wondering if I was seeing what I thought I was seeing,” she added.
(NASA, ESA, STScI and WP Maksym / CfA)
She posted his strange discovery on Twitter, and astronomers – including Maksym – were immediately intrigued. He and his colleagues, who were already working on the jets produced by the supermassive black hole of IC 5063, set out to study the strange shaded shapes.
They used near infrared observations taken in March and November with the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3. At these wavelengths, the instrument can scan the dust to better understand the center of the galaxy.
Based on the team’s analysis, there could be gaps or clear pathways in the dust and gas torus that envelops the innermost core of the IC 5063. If the black hole was flipped over the side relative to the galactic plane, some light from the galactic core would be blocked by the denser regions of the torus, but some would slide through these spaces, creating colossal galactic crepuscular rays.
(NASA, ESA and Z. Levy / STScI)
The gaps should be stable for at least 36,000 years for the rays to create more or less consistent straight lines. This imposes constraints that can help astronomers better understand the dynamics at play at the center of a galaxy 156 million light years away.
If this is the torus responsible, this tells us that the structure is quite thin and could be distorted by the couple in the galactic center.
“The discovery shows that the torus, or ring, could be very thin – light seems to come out almost everywhere. If the torus is large enough it becomes unstable, with the gravity and rotation that holds it together pointing in a direction near the hole. black and in a different direction as the galaxy’s influences start to get big. It looks like a chain or a bend, “Maksym said.
“Scientifically, it shows us something that is difficult – usually impossible – to see directly. We know this phenomenon should be happening, but in this case, we can see the effects throughout the galaxy. Learn more about the geometry of the torus will have implications for anyone trying to understand the behavior of supermassive black holes and their environments. “
(NASA, ESA, STScI and WP Maksym / CfA)
Because this is the first time we are seeing this, it may take a while to figure out what is really going on. There are still other possibilities to be excluded. A mysterious encounter could have created unusual X-shaped stellar orbits. Destruction of dust by hot exits from the galactic core has also not been fully ruled out, although the team notes that it seems unlikely, on the basis of their modeling.
The next step will be to take more observations at other wavelengths with a range of instruments and use this new data as a basis for performing detailed modeling.
“It’s a project that only asks for new data because it raises more questions than it answers,” Maksym said.
The research was published in Letters from the astrophysical journal.
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