Science/Tech

A Spewing Black Hole Neighboring the Milky Way Galaxy

By Kanika Gupta | Update Date: Jan 07, 2016 10:59 AM EST

A supermassive black hole found in the middle of a neighbor galaxy seemed to have "burped" after devouring matter that was close by, a phenomenon that can prove contributory in understanding the shaping of early universe, said latest research. Chandra-X telescope owned by NASA was used by scientists that helped them locate two x-ray emission streams near the center of NGC 5195, a tiny galaxy that is situated about 27 million light-years away. This galaxy is preparing to unify with another galaxy, a large spiral that is also called "the whirlpool." When the scientists observed again from a 0.9-meter Kitt Peak National Observatory telescope, it revealed a thin region of cool hydrogen gas, just outside the external arc of the x-rays, as reported by News YAC

According to the scientists, the hot gas that is believed to have generated the X-ray emissions, dived into colder regions. "This is the best example of snow-plowed material I've ever seen. This is clearly a way of ejecting gas from a galaxy," astronomer Eric Schlegel, with the University of Texas, San Antonio, said at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Kissimmee, Florida, on Tuesday. "We would expect this would happen a lot more often in the early universe. You get galaxies at a higher density, they're going to collide more often and you're going to get this kind of effect," he added, reports News YAC

As per the research, the black hole does not only ingest matter that drifts into the space region twisted by its own gravity, but is also capable of spewing materials too. Schlegel said it is possible that the arc of X-ray originates from the material that was projected due to gravitation caused by the merger of galaxies. "I'm skeptical that that would be an explanation," Schlegel told reporters. "The more interesting possibility is the supermassive black hole itself has actually reacted to all this mass coming in," said Discovery News

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