4/9/2023 0 Comments Black hole piercing“Not just at radio wavelengths, but at all other wavelengths of light as well. “We can learn a lot from Centaurus A in particular, just because it is so close and we can see it in such detail,” Dr. Astronomers have produced the most comprehensive image of radio emission from the nearest actively feeding supermassive black hole to Earth.Ĭentaurus A is the closest radio galaxy to our own Milky Way. It then zooms out to show the enormous extent of the surrounding bubbles that are observed at radio wavelengths. The video shows the apparent size of the galaxy at optical, X-ray, and submillimeter wavelengths from Earth when compared to the Moon. “Previous radio observations could not handle the extreme brightness of the jets and details of the larger area surrounding the galaxy were distorted, but our new image overcomes these limitations.”Ī video showing the radio galaxy, Centaurus A, which hosts the closest actively feeding black hole to Earth. “It forms a disc around the black hole, and as the matter gets ripped apart going close to the black hole, powerful jets form on either side of the disc, ejecting most of the material back out into space, to distances of probably more than a million light years. “These radio waves come from material being sucked into the supermassive black hole in the middle of the galaxy,” he said. Benjamin McKinley, from the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research ( ICRAR), said the image reveals spectacular new details of the radio emission from the galaxy. The research was published on December 22, 2021, in the journal Nature Astronomy. Credit: Connor Matherne, Louisiana State University (Optical/Halpha), Kraft et al. The ‘background’ is at optical wavelengths, showing stars in our own Milky Way that are actually in the foreground. Clouds emitting Halpha (red) are also shown above the main optical part of the galaxy which lies in between the two brightest radio blobs. The radio plasma is displayed in blue and appears to be interacting with hot X-ray emitting gas (orange) and cold neutral hydrogen (purple). This composite image shows the galaxy and the surrounding intergalactic space at several different wavelengths. At its heart lies a black hole with a mass of 55 million suns. Centaurus A is a giant elliptical active galaxy 12 million light-years away.
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