More than 10 billion light-years away, or approximately 3 billion years after the Big Bang, lies an object that is the ghostly remains of a black hole eruption. This high-energy apparition was created in a powerful outburst as particle jets travelled outward at nearly the speed of light.
"It's not out there to haunt us," says Andy Fabian of Cambridge University, one of the researchers who made the discovery, "rather, it's telling us something – in this case, what was happening in this galaxy billions of years ago."
Black Hole Ghost HDF 130
The black hole ghost, named HDF 130, existed at a time when galaxies and black holes were forming at a high rate in the early universe. When the eruption was new, it produced large amounts of radiation. Over a time period of several million years, the radio signals faded as the electrons radiated away their energy, leaving only the diffuse x-ray glow. The eruption's less energetic electrons still produce x-rays through interactions with the effusive photons left over from the Big Bang. These photos are more commonly known as the cosmic background radiation. When the less energetic electrons and photos from the cosmic background radiation collide, enough energy is created for the source to appear in x-rays. This x-ray production allows the black hole eruption to be detected approximately 30 million years longer.
"This ghost tells us about the black hole's eruption long after it has died," says Scott Chapman of Cambridge University, one of the scientsts who wrote the paper about this discovery. "This means we don't have to catch the black holes in the act to witness the big impact they have."
Details about HDF 130
HDF 130 is the first x-ray ghost discovered from radio-bright jets powered by a supermassive black hole. Astronomers used the pieces of evidence from the Chandra X-ray Observatory to determine what the object was. HDF 130 has a cigar-like shape that extends for some 2.2 million light-years, which meshes with the shape of that former radio jets would have had. The ghost's energy distribution is also consistent with the interpretation of an x-ray ghost. In radio images, only a point source is visible to coincide with the massive elliptical galaxy, revealing the presence of a growing supermassive black hole.
The power from the black hole eruption that eventually produced the x-ray ghost would have been equivalent to about a billion supernovas. This incredible blast will have even longer-term effects. "Even after the ghost disappears, most of the energy from the black hole's eruption remains," explains Fabian. "Because they're so powerful, these eruptions can have profound effects lasting for billions of years."
The composite image shown here is a combination of the x-ray image by Chandra, an optical image by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and a radio image from the Multi-Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network (MERLIN). The x-ray data is in blue, the optical is in white, and the radio is in red.
Source: Chandra X-ray Center
Kelly Whitt - I have been a professional writer for more than a decade, covering many topics from science-based articles to do-it-yourself home ...
