Black Hole Shoots Plasma Into Space, Stumble Into Something Unknown

Astronomers using the Chandra X-ray Space Telescope have discovered an unusual trace of a powerful jet from a giant black hole that crashed into an unidentified object in its path.

Scientists used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Space Telescope to study the Centaurus A galaxy, which is 12 million light-years away. At the center of the galaxy is a supermassive black hole that shoots out jets of plasma that extend across the galaxy.

These jets come not from the black hole itself, but from a surrounding disk of hot matter that feeds the black hole. In the new image, astronomers have seen that one of the black hole’s jets has crashed into an unknown object. The study was published in The Astrophysical Journal.

Astronomers have found that the black hole’s jet is moving at almost the speed of light. Observations have revealed a V-shaped region of radiation that is associated with an unknown X-ray source. It has not been observed before in the Centaurus A galaxy.

The unknown object, dubbed C4, is in the path of the supermassive black hole’s jet. At the same time, astronomers have determined that the length of each part of the “V” is at least 700 light years. For comparison, the closest star to us is almost 4 light years away, and one light year is 9.4 trillion kilometers.

Astronomers don’t yet know what the X-ray-emitting object is that the black hole’s jet has crashed into. It could be a massive star that isn’t gravitationally bound to the black hole, or it could be a star that orbits the black hole.

Scientists believe that the X-ray emission from the C4 object could be created by a collision between jet particles and particles of the stellar wind, if it is indeed a star.

But why the radiation has a V-shape also remains a mystery.

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In fact, this isn’t the first time astronomers have seen the jet from Centaurus A’s black hole crash into other objects in the galaxy.

Previous studies have suggested that these objects may be massive stars or clouds of interstellar gas. But the encounters between these objects and the jet of black hole plasma produce oval-shaped emissions in the images, rather than a V-shape.

Astronomers are now trying to figure out why C4 produces the radiation it does after colliding with the black hole’s jet. It may have something to do with the type of object and how directly the jet hits it.