MADRID, 5 Abr. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Astronomers have made a rare discovery in the early universe that involves two actively feeding supermassive black holes, or quasars, separated by only 10,000 light years.
Using an array of space-based — Hubble and Chandra — and ground-based telescopes, including two Maunakea observatories in Hawaii, the WM Keck Observatory and Gemini North, the researchers found the pair of black holes embedded within two galaxies that merged when the universe was only 3 billion years old.
The study, led by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, published in Nature.
Find such a system it is difficult due to the challenge of distinguishing two black holes individually when they are so close to each other. But in this particular system, called J0749+2255, both black holes were in a feeding frenzy, gobbling up gas and dust that heated up to such high temperatures that the duo produced a spectacular fireworks display. This activity is called a quasar, a phenomenon that occurs when black holes emit an enormous amount of light across the electromagnetic spectrum. while having a ‘feast’.
J0749+2255 is highly unusual in that the system has not one, but two quasars that are active at the same time and are close enough to merge.
“We don’t see many double quasars at this early time in the universe. And that’s why this discovery is so exciting,” he said. it’s a statement graduate student Yu-Ching Chen of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, lead author of this study.
ESA’s Gaia space observatory detected the unresolved double quasar for the first time, capturing images indicating two closely aligned beacons of light in the early universe. Chen and his team used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to verify that the points of light came from a pair of supermassive black holes.
Multi-wavelength observations followed; Using Keck Observatory’s second-generation near-infrared camera (NIRC2) in conjunction with its adaptive optics system, as well as Gemini North, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Very Large Array radio telescope network in New Mexico, the Researchers confirmed the double quasar was not two images of the same quasar created by gravitational lensing.
“The confirmation process was not easy and we needed a series of telescopes covering the spectrum from X-rays to radio to finally confirm that this system is in fact a pair of quasars, rather than, say, two images of a gravitationally lensed quasarsaid co-author Yue Shen, an astronomer at the University of Illinois.
NO LONGER EXISTS
Because telescopes look into the distant past, this double quasar no longer exists. During the intervening 10 billion years, their host galaxies have likely settled into a giant elliptical galaxy, such as those seen in the local universe today. And quasars have merged to become one gigantic supermassive black hole at their center.
The nearby giant elliptical galaxy, M87, has a monstrous black hole weighing 6.5 billion times the mass of our Sun. Perhaps this black hole arose from one or more galaxy mergers in the last few billion years.
There is increasing evidence that large galaxies form through mergers. Smaller systems come together to form larger systems and larger and larger structures. During that processpairs of supermassive black holes should form inside the merging galaxies.