Two cosmic structures were able to shed light on the amazing changes in the behavior of a supermassive black hole in a distant galaxy. This work involved X-ray Observatory "Chandra" and several other telescopes. In their work, scientists analyzed the tip of a giant space "blob" and the gas bubble, and in the future, this technology could be a new method to investigate the past activities of the black hole and its impact on the galaxy in which it resides.
X-ray
"Green Blot" is a fairly well-known space structure of unknown type in the constellation Leo Minor. It has the name of Hanny's Voorwerp, which is translated from the Dutch as the object Hanni, it was discovered in 2007 the Dutch school teacher Hanny van Arkel from its participation as a volunteer in the Galaxy Zoo project. Photographic it looks like a bright blob near the spiral galaxy IC 2497. The distance to the object is 680 million light years.
Astrophysicists believe that the dramatic explosion in both the ultraviolet and X-rays of a supermassive black hole in the center of IC 2497, which is the Earth at a distance of 200,000 light years, could affect the oxygen atoms in the gas cloud that created such an emerald glow. It is established that at present this black hole grows slowly and does not produce enough radiation to cause such an effect. However, the distance to this space splash big enough, which is why we have so far, we can observe an echo of the past activity of the black hole. Most likely, if the galaxy in our time produces the same huge amount of radiation, it could easily be characterized as a quasar.
Rather it turned out that the original black hole was growing at a much faster rate, and then, at least 200,000 years ago, suddenly slowed its growth. In such a scenario would be a dull object Hanni still only in a very distant future, because only the weakening of the X-ray and ultraviolet radiation to reach the cloud.
The images galaxy IC 2497 is located at the top, and Hanni object below it. X-ray data from the "Chandra" is shown in purple and optical data from the "Hubble" in red, green and blue. There is another feature. Observations of X-ray Observatory show that the black hole still produces a lot of energy, even though it is not so intense, that it considered the quasar. Evidence of this change activities are at the center of it. In observations with a slow shutter speed it was found that there are more than a cold gas, which can be compared with the air bubble in boiling water. Astronomers speculate that the bubble may have formed when the pair of jets emitted from the pole, threw part of the hot gas into space. It is the presence of relativistic jets may be the main reason for the termination of life in the galaxy a quasar: energy was simply thrown out of the center with the jets.
Such changes in behavior, by strong radiation to the outflow of energy, usually seen in the black holes of stellar mass, which is about ten times the mass of our sun, and the entire power reset process takes only a few weeks. The black hole in IC 2497 has a much larger mass, so the process takes its calming many thousands of years.
Source: NASA press release