The Milky Way’s unusual neighbor surprises again. An exceptional accident
The Centaurus A galaxy just got even more interesting. Not only is it in the center of the Milky Way galaxy, but it also has a supermassive black hole in it, whose jets have just hit something in space. What? That’s the whole puzzle.
More text below the video
If you have the feeling that at least half of the above introduction is written in a language other than Polish, I hasten to explain – black holes accumulate matter around themselves, which is later absorbed. The collected particles heat up as they approach the edge, creating a characteristic ring. Sometimes some of this material in the form of plasma is thrown out of the disk with great force, creating extensive tails called jets. But now one of them, shot from the central supermassive black hole, has hit something in the galaxy Centaurus A (NGC 5128).
Mysterious radiation
Centaurus A is a peculiar galaxy, i.e. one with interesting and unusual shapes. It is separated from the Milky Way by approximately 12 million light years. It attracted observers’ attention, among other things, because of a number of orbiting dwarf galaxies and a structure that may be the result of the collision and merger of two galaxies. In addition, you can also find there the mentioned supermassive black hole, characterized by high activity. This can be seen, for example, in the jets fired even into intergalactic space.
But what did one of the jets that escaped the black hole in Centaurus A hit? If only you know the answer, the astonomers will reward you. They don’t know it yet. For now, the facility has been named C4. No other collision in Centaurus A’s jets produces the same V-shaped X-ray emission as this one – sciencealert.com explains the uniqueness of this event. Each arm is about 700 light years long. In the photo above, this effect is visible on the right, about halfway up.
Astronomers believe that there are few possible explanations for this phenomenon. Possible scenarios include a massive star. Unfortunately, there are still many questions on this matter. For example, one of the arms appears at an oblique angle that is difficult to explain. Further observations will be necessary to solve the mystery of the jet’s strange V-shaped X-ray radiation. Fortunately, close proximity means a chance to receive results faster.
