The centers of galaxies by feeding horrible black holes are already amazing environments. Now, a team of researchers led by a graduate student from the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy (IfA) found oddball even more interesting. Black hole feeding usually increases and decreases in brightness similar to a Kīlauea volcano on Hawaii Island, becoming more or more active over time in immeasurable ways. However, the recently discovered black hole is more like an Old Faithful geyser at Yellowstone National Park, exploding again and again at expected times.
Astronomers classify galaxies with strangely clear and variable centers as active galaxies. The active centers can emit much more energy than all the stars in the host galaxy come together. The excess energy can be seen at visible, ultraviolet and X-ray waves. Astronomers think the extra diffusion comes from near the supermassive black hole in the center of the galaxy, where a swirling disk of gas and dust accumulates and heats up due to gravitational and fracture forces. The black hole slowly eats the material, which usually creates random low-level changes in the diffused light of the disc.
Flaring galaxy
However, a growing galaxy was first discovered in 2014 by the All Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN) A 14-cm telescope at the Haleakalā Observatory on Maui. Headquartered at Ohio State University, ASAS-SN scanning the entire sky each night using telescopes around the world, looking for explosive stars, stellar flames and comets. The constellation, ESO 253-3, the known active galaxy is more than 570 million light-years away in the southern Pictor constellation. At the time, astronomers thought the revolution was a supernova, a one-time event that destroys a star.
The occasional flames were not marked until 2020 when NASA Graduate Anna Payne at IfA they found in the ASAS-SN data as part of her doctoral dissertation studying active galactic nucleus. She discovered the center of the galaxy ESO Occasionally 253-3 emit a bright flame, every 114 days. Flames from time to time in active galleries have been sought before but have never before been found unparalleled and have been found less frequently.
“This is the first clear example of recurring multi-wave flames from the galaxy core that occur frequently,” Payne said.
Led by the UH team, an international group of astronauts used several other observatories to reveal the complexity of these flames. Their study combined data from ASAS-SN, UHthe last warning system with an Asteroid terrestrial effect, NASANiall Gehrels Swift Theater, NASAExoplanet Transiting Survey satellite, Las Cumbres Observatory (including telescopes at Haleakalā Observatory) and amateur astronauts from around the world. Payne’s study found that the flames occur not only in the visible waves, but also at high-energy and higher-energy ultraviolet X-waves.
For more information see IfAwebsite.