Super Explosion at a Supermassive Black Hole

[lpetrich]

The super explosion was of material falling into a galaxy center's supermassive black hole, and it is inferred from what we see of its remnants.

Record-breaking Explosion by Black Hole Spotted | NASA

The biggest explosion seen in the universe has been found. This record-breaking, gargantuan eruption came from a black hole in a distant galaxy cluster hundreds of millions of light years away.

"In some ways, this blast is similar to how the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1980 ripped off the top of the mountain," said Simona Giacintucci of the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC, and lead author of the study. "A key difference is that you could fit fifteen Milky Way galaxies in a row into the crater this eruption punched into the cluster's hot gas."

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In the center of the Ophiuchus cluster, there is a large galaxy that contains a supermassive black hole. Researchers think that the source of the gigantic eruption is this black hole.

Although black holes are famous for pulling material toward them, they often expel prodigious amounts of material and energy. This happens when matter falling toward the black hole is redirected into jets, or beams, that blast outward into space and slam into any surrounding material.

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The amount of energy required to create the cavity in Ophiuchus is about five times greater than the previous record holder, MS 0735+74, and hundreds and thousands of times greater than typical clusters.

The black hole eruption must have finished because the researchers do not see any evidence for current jets in the radio data. This shutdown can be explained by the Chandra data, which show that the densest and coolest gas seen in X-rays is currently located at a different position from the central galaxy. If this gas shifted away from the galaxy it will have deprived the black hole of fuel for its growth, turning off the jets.

Chandra :: Photo Album :: Ophiuchus Galaxy Cluster :: February 27, 2020

• Astronomers have discovered the biggest explosion seen in the Universe in the Ophiuchus galaxy cluster.
• A giant black hole in the central galaxy of the cluster caused the explosion, blasting out jets that carved a cavity in the surrounding hot gas.
• Astronomers obtained this result using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, XMM-Newton, and two radio telescopes in Australia and India.
• The explosion released a factor of five more energy than the previous record holder and hundreds of thousands of times more than typical clusters.

Chandra Press Room :: Record-Breaking Explosion by Black Hole Spotted :: 27 February 2020

[2002.01291] Discovery of a giant radio fossil in the Ophiuchus galaxy cluster - arxiv preprint