Black holes

0

An article published in “The Astrophysical Journal Letters” reports a model of supermassive black hole formation that explains the rapid growth of the ones observed in the early universe. Wei-Xiang Feng, Hai-Bo Yu, and Yi-Ming Zhong propose a model in which the so-called seeds from which these gigantic black holes are formed are generated by a halo of self-interacting dark matter. According to this model, the collapse that forms the seed is accelerated by baryonic matter, common matter, a unified scenario between the two types of matter.

The quasar J1243+0100 (Image ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Izumi et al.)

0

An article published in “The Astrophysical Journal” reports the discovery of high-speed gas flows pushed by the supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy over 13 billion light-years from Earth. A team of researchers led by Takuma Izumi of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) used the ALMA radio telescope to observe the galaxy HSC J124353.93+010038.5, or simply J1243+0100. It’s the oldest known galaxy so far with a wind of that size. This shows how supermassive black holes can heavily influence the galaxies that host them and that this has been happening since the universe was very young.

The radio galaxy CGCG 044-046 in an elaboration showing the MeerKAT detections in white on an optical image of the Digital Sky Survey 2

0

An article published in the journal “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society” reports a review of radio galaxies discovered 47 years ago using two of the most powerful radio telescopes currently in service. A team of researchers used the uGMRT and MeerKAT radio telescopes to conduct the new observations. The first author is astronomer Bernie Fanaroff, who began the study of radio galaxies and classified them together with astrophysicist Julia Riley.

The area around the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy M87 seen in the various bands of the electromagnetic spectrum during the 2017 observation campaign

0

An article published in “The Astrophysical Journal Letters” reports the results of multiband observations of the area around the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy M87. 33 members of the Multiwavelength Science Working Group of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) led a large team of researchers who put together data collected by the various radio telescopes that made up the EHT in the extraordinary campaign of observations which led to the historical photo published in 2019 and other data of observations in other electromagnetic bands conducted with various space and ground-based telescopes. This allows to conduct more in-depth analyzes thanks to the completeness of the emissions detected not only by the supermassive black hole but also by its jets that eject materials at very high speeds.

The 12 Einstein crosses

0

An article accepted for publication in “The Astrophysical Journal” reports the identification of 12 quasars whose image has been quadrupled by gravitational lenses obtaining images similar to the so-called Einstein Cross. Researchers from the Gaia Gravitational Lenses (GraL) group used data collected by ESA’s Gaia space probe and NASA’s WISE space telescope and examined them with machine learning algorithms. In this way, it was possible to recognize quasar candidates whose image was distorted by gravitational lenses leading to the identification of 12 Einstein crosses.