USRA: Black Hole or Newborn Stars?

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USRA: Black Hole or Newborn Stars?

Post by bystander » Tue Dec 03, 2019 12:16 am

Black Hole or Newborn Stars? SOFIA Finds a Galactic Puzzle
Universities Space Research Association | 2019 Dec 02
Universities Space Research Association (USRA) today announced that scientists on NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) found a strange black hole that is changing its galactic surroundings in a way that is usually associated with newborn stars.

Astronomers study how stars form in very distant galaxies by searching for signatures of gas heated by the stars called ionized carbon. But SOFIA discovered that active black holes can also heat this gas. These results contradict the long-held understanding that the energy creating ionized carbon in distant galaxies is from star formation alone. This discovery forces scientists to re-evaluate the effect black holes have on galaxies and the stars inside them.

Black holes are inherently strange, with gravitational forces so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape. As active black holes consume gas and dust, some of that material is instead launched outward as jets of high-energy particles and radiation. Usually these jets are perpendicular to the host galaxy, but NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, found one that is shooting directly into its galaxy.

That jet is heating up gas around the galaxy's center in a way that's characteristic of stars being born. This is prompting scientists to reevaluate their ideas about a key gas associated with baby stars, and about how black holes affect their host galaxies generally. ...

The Close AGN Reference Survey (CARS): Discovery of a Global (C II)
158 μm Line Excess in AGN HE 1353-1917
~ I. Smirnova-Pinchukova et al The Close AGN Reference Survey (CARS): A Massive Multi-Phase Outflow
Impacting the Edge-on Galaxy HE 1353-1917
~ B. Husemann et al
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